2.6 Types of Machine Learning

ML has four major types. Each type solves different problems.
⭐ Type 1 — Supervised Learning (Most Important in ML)
Supervised learning uses labeled data.
Example:
| Image | Label |
|---|---|
| Cat photo | Cat |
| Dog photo | Dog |
Used for:
- Email spam detection
- Disease prediction
- Face recognition
- Credit card fraud detection
Why it’s powerful:
It learns the relationship between input → output.
⭐ Type 2 — Unsupervised Learning
Learns from unlabeled data. Finds hidden patterns.
Examples:
- Customer segmentation
- Product grouping
- Document clustering
Algorithms:
- K-Means
- Hierarchical Clustering
- PCA
⭐ Type 3 — Semi-Supervised Learning
Mix of:
- Few labeled samples
- Many unlabeled samples
Used in:
- YouTube video tagging
- Facial recognition
- Speech labeling
⭐ Type 4 — Reinforcement Learning (Learning by Reward)
Agent takes actions → gets reward → learns.
Used in:
- Self-driving cars
- Robotics
- Game AI
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