AI Lexicon — U

Unsupervised learning

Contrary to supervised learning, an unsupervised machine learning technology uses an algorithm to determine and organize sets of unlabeled data.

For example, an algorithm could be fed images of cats and dogs and it would independently — without human help — look for patterns, similarities and differences in the images. It would then be able to identify and sort cats and dogs in groups of images.

Researchers say unsupervised learning is good for searching through exploratory data to analyze and categorize — so, basically, when you don’t know what you’re looking for. (za/fs)

 

Sources:

What is unsupervised learning? (IBM) https://www.ibm.com/topics/unsupervised-learning (accessed October 17, 2023)

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Written and edited by: Zulfikar Abbany (za), Fred Schwaller (fs)