What's your algorithm?

Human brain, the most complex machine ever built, starts learning in the mother’s womb, to never stop till the very end. There is an intriguing similarity between the ways humans and machines learn. Bit of a stretch you can argue, but I couldn’t hold myself back in divulging into this thought experiment and penning it down here.

Stage #1: Unsupervised Learning in mother’s womb

Unsupervised learning in machine learning parlance, is training the machine using information that is neither classified nor labelled, and allowing algorithm to act on the information without guidance.

A baby in mother’s womb is on its own in a unique environment. There is nobody to teach that baby anything about the environment and this is the most transitioning stage in its life. Nobody teaches that baby how to use its sensory and brain mechanism for hearing. The baby learns without any any guidance, under no supervision whatsoever. 

Stage #2: Supervised Learning in infancy

In Supervised learning, an algorithm is fed with labelled output and input data to provide a learning basis for future predictions. The training data set is nothing but a teacher, who teaches its learner through multiple positive and negative examples. The testing data set examines the learning effectiveness.

An infant is constantly subjected to labels- this is hot, this is cold, this is dangerous, this is safe, this is day, this is night and so much on. There is a mix of training and testing data set a learner, an infant, is exposed to and there is a constant feedback coming along the way.

Stage #3: Reinforcement Learning during primary education

In reinforcement learning, an agent finds balance between exploration of unknown areas and exploitation of known areas. This agent is rewarded for good actions and punished for not so great actions.

A learner in Primary education system has a fair share of things to explore and those to exploit. Primary education is largely about teaching by encouraging good behaviour and discouraging bad behaviour. This phase is full of prescriptions and prescriptions, especially at this stage of life, are good or bad is another topic for another day.

Stage #4: Supervised Learning during higher education

During higher education phase, learner is taught through labelling and classification. While education system can only do so much of labelling, majority of training happens outside the classrooms by the people learner is influenced by and his or her own experiences in the earlier three stages.

There is substantial theory to grasp (training stage) and little bit of practical (testing stage) on the way.

Stage #5: Supervised and/ or Unsupervised Learning during adult life

An adult, who has weathered so many years of education, is on the cusp of supervised and unsupervised learning. A supervised learner is typically an adult who is compliant, and who frequently leverages known to deal with the unknown. An unsupervised learner at this stage is creative, often thinks entrepreneurial and out of box. While one oscillated between the two styles, the naturally preferred style influences the course of one’s life.

While these analogies are generic and there are obvious exceptions to almost everything, if we zoom out, life of a poor kid in Africa, of a young politician in Europe, or of a bureaucrat on the verge of retirement in India may look similar, when looked through the lenses of these stages. If 'a man is known by the company he keeps', he is defined by the algorithms he lives!