Mental Models

What Is Cross Validation in Machine Learning

Cross validation in machine learning is not just a technique for testing a model. It is a way of asking a...
mladvocate
4 min read

What Is Overfitting in Machine Learning

Overfitting is not a model failing to learn. It is a model that learned exactly what it was shown, and nothing...
mladvocate
3 min read

What Regularization Does (and Why Your Model Needs It)

Overfitting is not a mistake the model makes. It is what happens when a model does exactly what it is told....
mladvocate
4 min read

Machine Learning for Non-Technical Professionals

Why Your “Silly Questions” Are Product Requirements We have a technical writer on our team. She’s sharp, curious, and exactly the...
mladvocate
7 min read

A Friendly Introduction to Principal Component Analysis

Most datasets don’t have two or three measurements per observation. They have dozens, sometimes hundreds. A patient record might include blood...
mladvocate
5 min read

Bias Variance Tradeoff: Why Your ML Model Can’t Have It All

For years, every time I fixed one problem with my models, I created another one. Make the model more sophisticated to...
mladvocate
3 min read

Training vs Testing Data: ML Models Must Prove Themselves

Does this sound familiar? You’re tutoring a student for an upcoming math test. You help them solve dozens of practice problems...
mladvocate
5 min read

Inference vs Prediction in Machine Learning: What’s the Difference?

Some machine learning applications can make accurate recommendations but can’t explain the reasoning. Others provide clear explanations but aren’t quite as...
mladvocate
2 min read

Classification vs Regression: Predicting What vs. How Much

In our previous post, we explored supervised vs. unsupervised learning. Now we’re diving into another fundamental choice you’ll face in every...
mladvocate
5 min read

Supervised vs Unsupervised Learning in Machine Learning: What the Names Don’t Tell You

Remember learning to ride a bike? Some of us had a parent running alongside, holding the seat and shouting guidance: “Pedal...
mladvocate
5 min read
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