机器学习学习笔记——1.1.1.1.2 Applications of machine learning（机器学习应用）

In this class, you'll learn about the state of the art and also practice implementing machine learning algorithms yourself. You'll learn about the most important machine learning algorithms, some of which are exactly what's being used in large AI or large tech companies today and you get a sense of what is the state of the art in AI. Beyond learning the algorithms though, in this class, you'll also learn all the important practical tips and tricks for making them perform well. You get to implement them and see how they work for yourself.

Why is machine learning so widely used today? Machine Learning had grown up as a sub-field of AI or artificial intelligence. We wanted to build intelligent machines. It turns out that there are a few basic things that we could program a machine to do, such as how to find the shortest path from a to b, like in your GPS. But for the most part, we just did not know how to write an explicit program to do many of the more interesting things, such as perform web search, recognize human speech, diagnose diseases from X-rays or build a self-driving car. The only way we knew how to do these things was to have a machine learn to do it by itself. For me, when I founded and was leading the Google Brain Team, I worked on problems like speech recognition, computer vision for Google Maps, Street View images and advertising, or leading AI Baidu, I worked on everything from AI for augmented reality to combating payment fraud to leading a self-driving car team. Most recently, at landing.AI, AI Fund and Stanford University, I'm beginning to work on AI applications in the factory, large-scale agriculture, health care, e-commerce, and other problems.

Today, there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people working on machine learning applications who could tell you similar stories about their work with machine learning. When you've learned these skills, I hope that you too will find the great fun to dabble in exciting different applications and maybe even different industries. In fact, I find it hard to think of any industry that machine learning is unlikely to touch in a significant way now or in the near future.

Looking even further into the future, many people, including me, are excited about the AI dream of someday building machines as intelligent as you or me. This is sometimes called Artificial General Intelligence or AGI. I think AGI has been overhyped and we're still a long way away from that goal. I don't know. It'll take 50 years or 500 years or longer to get there. But mostly AI researchers believe that the best way to get closer toward that goal is by using learning algorithms. Maybe ones that take some inspiration from how the human brain works. You also hear a little more about this Quest for AGI later in this course.

According to a study by McKinsey, AI and machine learning is estimated to create an additional 13 trillion US dollars of value annually by the year 2030. Even though machine learning is already creating tremendous amounts of value in the software industry, I think there could be even vastly greater value that has yet to be created outside the software industry in sectors such as retail, travel, transportation, automotive, materials manufacturing, and so on. Because of the massive untapped opportunities across so many different sectors, today there is a vast unfulfilled demand for this skill set. That's why this is such a great time to be learning about machine learning. If you find machine learning applications exciting, I hope you stick with me through this class. I can almost guarantee that you'll find mastering these skills worthwhile.

In the next video, we'll look at a more formal definition of what is machine learning. And we'll begin to talk about the main types of machine learning problems and algorithms. You pick up some of the main machine learning terminology and start to get a sense of what are the different algorithms and when each one might be appropriate. So let's go on to the next video.

在这次课程中，你将学习到关于人工智能领域的最新技术，并且实践实现机器学习算法。你将了解到最重要的机器学习算法，其中一些正是如今大型科技公司所采用的，让你对人工智能的前沿技术有一个认识。然而，除了学习这些算法之外，本课程还将教你所有重要的实用技巧和诀窍，以确保它们的良好表现。你将亲自实现这些算法并了解它们的工作原理。

为什么机器学习在今天如此广泛使用？机器学习作为人工智能（AI）的一个子领域而发展起来。我们希望构建智能机器。结果发现，我们可以为机器编写一些基本的程序，比如如何找到从A点到B点的最短路径，就像你的GPS一样。但大多数情况下，我们只是不知道如何编写一个明确的程序来执行许多更有趣的任务，如进行网络搜索、识别人类语音、根据X光诊断疾病或构建自动驾驶汽车。我们唯一知道的方法是让机器自己学习如何做。对我来说，当我创立并领导谷歌大脑团队时，我从事了语音识别、谷歌地图的计算机视觉、街景图像和广告等工作，或者在领导百度的AI时，我从增强现实到打击支付欺诈再到领导自动驾驶汽车团队等各方面工作。最近，在landing.AI、AI Fund和斯坦福大学，我开始着手于工厂、大规模农业、医疗保健、电子商务等领域的AI应用。

如今，有成千上万甚至数百万的人在从事机器学习应用的工作，他们可以告诉你类似的故事，讲述他们与机器学习的合作经历。当你学会了这些技能，我希望你也会发现涉足不同应用领域乃至不同行业的极大乐趣。事实上，我很难想到现在或不久的将来，有什么行业是机器学习不太可能以显著方式触及的。

展望未来，许多人，包括我，都对有一天构建出与你我一样智能的机器这一人工智能梦想感到兴奋。这有时被称为人工通用智能或AGI。我认为AGI被过度炒作了，我们还离这个目标很远。我不知道。可能需要50年或500年或更长时间才能到达那里。但大多数AI研究人员相信，通过使用学习算法，特别是那些受到人脑工作方式启发的算法，是接近该目标的最佳方式。在这门课的后面，你还会听到更多关于追求AGI的信息。

根据麦肯锡的一项研究，到2030年，AI和机器学习预计每年将创造额外的13万亿美元价值。尽管机器学习已经在软件行业创造了巨大的价值，我认为在零售、旅游、交通、汽车、材料制造等领域还有更大的价值尚未被发掘。由于这么多不同部门存在大量未开发的机会，如今对这项技能的需求巨大且未得到满足。这就是为什么现在是学习机器学习的好时机。如果你觉得机器学习应用令人兴奋，我希望你坚持学完这门课程。我几乎可以保证，掌握这些技能将是值得的。

在下一个视频中，我们将更正式地定义什么是机器学习。我们将开始讨论主要类型的机器学习问题和算法。你将学到主要的机器学习术语，并开始了解不同的算法以及何时使用它们是合适的。那么，让我们继续下一个视频吧。