Is Machine Learning Hard?

Is Machine Learning Hard?

Machine learning is becoming increasingly popular these days, with more and more applications in various areas, like entertainment, e–commerce, transport, healthcare, and many others. You might have heard that Machine learning is a booming field, with a lot of opportunities and with a high pay scale, and you might want to choose Machine learning-related career.

But there can be this obvious but stupid question saying– “Is Machine learning hard?”. Well, we are here to discuss some things, which can make your mind clear on things about Machine learning. First of all, you don’t have to be an Engineer or have a Master’s degree to learn Machine learning(though it may help you to some extent, not a strict requirement). You can too easily get started with learning the concepts related to Machine learning with some foundation, and then keep learning to develop your skills.

So, let’s now move on to discuss what is Machine learning, and then we will also discuss whether or not is Machine learning hard.

Is Machine Learning Hard?

What is Machine learning?

Maybe you might want to get started with learning Machine learning, and you heard from someone, that it is hard! Or you might be thinking that it is hard. But sometimes, we find things hard to understand, just because we are unable to relate to them. This is like if you are talking about your favorite movie with your friend, and your friend has not watched the movie, so he may not relate to how you feel watching the movie.

Just like this, if you could not relate to the Machine learning concepts and their needs, you would find it hard to grasp and understand.

So, let’s first try to understand what is Machine learning in a simple way. We want to give you a different perspective to look towards the concept of Machine learning. In simple terms, Machine learning says that “Machine is learning”, but let’s describe it further so that it becomes easier to understand, so here is an example of that.

Imagine that there is a kid, and who doesn’t understand the different emotions in human speech, like happiness, anger, sadness, and fear. Now, you want to train the kid to listen to human speech and tell whether he/she is happy, angry or sad, or fearful.

So, you give a lot of sample recordings, telling at each recording that this is happy, this is fearful, this is angry, and so on (we are basically labeling every recording with the output so that it can recognize the pattern of when the voice is happy, or sad, or angry, etc.)

So, after going through a lot of samples, when the kid is exposed to some new sample, it should be able to recognize the speech as happy, angry, sad, fearful, etc.

In a similar way, we can train the Machine to understand the emotions in human speech. So here, the Machine would be fed with a lot of (really lot of) recordings which are labeled with the output, so it understands the patterns in the recordings, and then after training, it is able to recognize the speech as happy, sad, angry, fearful.

So, now that you have an idea of what is happening in Machine learning, let’s try to define what is Machine learning. Well, Machine learning enables machines to learn from data, make predictions, or take decisions, without being explicitly programmed.

So, this was a brief explanation related to what is Machine learning. I hope that you found it easy to understand what is Machine learning, and with this, we are comfortable to move to understand whether or not is Machine learning hard. By the way, looking at the definition and all the explanations above, do you still think Machine learning is Hard?

Is Machine Learning Hard?

Let’s come back to the same point – sometimes, we find things difficult to understand, just because we are not able to relate with them because otherwise there are a lot of people working day and night on the same thing that you are unable to understand as well.

So, there is a thin line between someone who is not able to understand the concept, and someone who is working day and night on the same concept, and that thin line is not necessarily a degree, but some other things. Now, Machine learning is easy to learn and implement, but it is not a task of a day or two.

You have to go through learning a series of concepts, like programming languages (like Python), different tools, technologies, and frameworks to be able to implement different stuff.

If you ask is Machine learning hard? The answer would be No! But if you change the question asking – “Is Machine learning easy then?” The answer would be again No! It totally depends on your approach and standpoint of learning Machine learning.

Someone would just do Machine learning because he/she has it in the semester. On the other hand, someone would learn Machine Learning because he/she is curious about the future, and want to be a part of this technological advancement and contribute to it.

Even if the student is getting 10 on 10 in the semester, he/she may not know much about Machine Learning, because here, the goal was quite different.

So, Machine learning is simple, if you keep a realistic approach, give time to it, understand the concept with some real-life examples, and do some practice. Remember that it is not stuff for 1 day. The course you have taken or the video you are watching be of some hours, but it would take you months to understand and implement Machine learning concepts.

So, if you are willing to give the time and effort required to learn Machine learning, it would easy for you after some time.

Summary

Trying to answer the question – “Is Machine learning hard?” we can simply say that instead of giving a concrete answer to this (which would become a biased opinion from someone who finds it hard or someone who finds it easy), we should instead analyze that why are we learning Machine learning, and how much time and efforts can we put into learning Machine learning.

Machine learning can be simple for someone, and hard for someone else. So, the approach, the learning resources, practice, time, effort, dedication, etc. would make a high impact on whether Machine learning is hard or easy for you.

If you find this article useful, you can consider reading some other informative articles on Machine learning, and Python, through which, you can learn more about these concepts.

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