Scribd
Upload
49 views16 pages

9 Learning

Learning allows agents to adapt to unknown environments by modifying their decision mechanisms based on experience. A learning agent consists of a performance element and a learning element. Supervised learning aims to find a simple hypothesis, like a decision tree, that is consistent with labeled training examples. Decision tree learning works by choosing attributes that best split examples into positive and negative sets to generalize beyond the training data.

Uploaded by

CrystalCry
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
49 views16 pages

9 Learning

Learning allows agents to adapt to unknown environments by modifying their decision mechanisms based on experience. A learning agent consists of a performance element and a learning element. Supervised learning aims to find a simple hypothesis, like a decision tree, that is consistent with labeled training examples. Decision tree learning works by choosing attributes that best split examples into positive and negative sets to generalize beyond the training data.

Uploaded by

CrystalCry
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 16

Introduction to Learning

Learning
Learning is essential for unknown environments,
i.e., when designer lacks omniscience

Learning is useful as a system construction


method,
i.e., expose the agent to reality rather than trying to
write it down

Learning modifies the agent's decision


mechanisms to improve performance

Learning agents

Learning element
Design of a learning element is affected by
Which components of the performance element are to
be learned
What feedback is available to learn these components
What representation is used for the components

Type of feedback:
Supervised learning: correct answers for each
example
Unsupervised learning: correct answers not given

Inductive learning
Simplest form: learn a function from examples
f is the target function
An example is a pair (x, f(x))
Problem: find a hypothesis h
such that h f
given a training set of examples

(This is a highly simplified model of real learning:


Ignores prior knowledge
Assumes examples are given)

Inductive learning method


Construct/adjust h to agree with f on training set
(h is consistent if it agrees with f on all examples)

E.g., curve fitting:

Inductive learning method


Construct/adjust h to agree with f on training set
(h is consistent if it agrees with f on all examples)

E.g., curve fitting:

Inductive learning method


Construct/adjust h to agree with f on training set
(h is consistent if it agrees with f on all examples)

E.g., curve fitting:

Inductive learning method


Construct/adjust h to agree with f on training set
(h is consistent if it agrees with f on all examples)

E.g., curve fitting:

Learning decision trees


Problem: decide whether to wait for a table at a restaurant,
based on the following attributes:
1. Alternate: is there an alternative restaurant nearby?
2. Bar: is there a comfortable bar area to wait in?
3. Fri/Sat: is today Friday or Saturday?
4. Hungry: are we hungry?
5. Patrons: number of people in the restaurant (None, Some, Full)
6. Price: price range ($, $$, $$$)
7. Raining: is it raining outside?
8. Reservation: have we made a reservation?
9. Type: kind of restaurant (French, Italian, Thai, Burger)
10. WaitEstimate: estimated waiting time (0-10, 10-30, 30-60, >60)

Attribute-based representations

Examples described by attribute values (Boolean, discrete, continuous)


E.g., situations where I will/won't wait for a table:

Classification of examples is positive (T) or negative (F)

Decision trees
One possible representation for hypotheses
E.g., here is the true tree for deciding whether to wait:

Expressiveness

Decision trees can express any function of the input attributes.


E.g., for Boolean functions, truth table row path to leaf:

Trivially, there is a consistent decision tree for any training set with one path
to leaf for each example (unless f nondeterministic in x) but it probably won't
generalize to new examples

Prefer to find more compact decision trees

Choosing an attribute
Idea: a good attribute splits the examples into subsets
that are (ideally) "all positive" or "all negative"

Patrons? is a better choice

Example contd.
Decision tree learned from the 12 examples:

Summary
Learning needed for unknown environments,
lazy designers
Learning agent = performance element +
learning element
For supervised learning, the aim is to find a
simple hypothesis approximately consistent with
training examples
Decision tree learning using information gain

You might also like