Machine Learning Made Easier (or NOT!): "The Master Algorithm" by Pedro Domingos
Published September 22nd 2015.
How can one become an expert in ML? All one needs is a basic background in (multivariate) Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Probability. ML is math. If one wants to understand the techniques, one has to understand the math. No shortcut. If one wants to start looking into the field of ML, this book is for you. If not, stay well clear.
My background is in computer science and software engineering and I've been interested in ML since I can remember. In 2013 I took Andrew NG's ML class at Stanford University (for those of you who want to dive into stuff like this here are mynotes of the class; while learning the needed math can look daunting at first it is actually quite fun once you get into it), and I was never literally the same…After that I made some Python coding to get a feel for the real thing, which I’m still doing to this day.
Humans ARE machines, albeit biologically-based. Billions of highly interconnected neurons receiving sensory input, lots of internal feedback, and signals that go out to motors, etc. Emotions, feelings, consciousness, are all just “concepts” we've constructed through a mixture of self-introspection and communicating with other self-introspecting machines (humans).
Read on, if learning comes as second nature to you.
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