What is Classification?

Related Questions:
 What is Logistic Regression?
– What is Supervised Learning?
– Top 25 Interview Questions on Classification with detailed Answers (All free

Introduction

Classification is a type of supervised machine learning that involves training a model to identify which category or class an input data point belongs to. In other words, classification is a way to automatically assign a label or category to a given piece of input data.

an example of a classification algorithm
An example of a classification algorithm is used to flag incoming emails into spam and not spam
Source: Google machine learning education

The process of classification typically involves feeding a large amount of labeled data into an algorithm or model, which learns to recognize patterns and relationships between different features or attributes of the data. Once the model has been trained, it can be used to predict the class of new, unlabeled data points.

Classification is used in a wide range of applications, such as image and speech recognition, text analysis, fraud detection, sentiment analysis, spam filtering, and customer segmentation, among others

Types of Classification

There are the three different types of classification: (a) Binary Classification, (b) Multi-class Classification, and (c) Multi-label Classification. The following table explains each of the classification types along with an example:

types of classification
Types of Classification (Source: AIML.com Research)

Classification Algorithms

Following are the most commonly used classification algorithms in machine learning today:

Video Explanation:

  • This video by Quantra explains the concept of classification, different types and delves deeper into 4 different classification algorithms (Runtime: 7 minutes)
YouTube video
Classification by Quantra
  • In “Machine Learning Specialization” course by Andrew Ng, he discusses the concepts of traditional machine learning in detail, including classification algorithms. These videos are a great resource for understanding classification from scratch.
YouTube video
Classification by Dr. Andrew Ng, Stanford and DeepLearningAI

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