PAC Learning

Tutorial Slides by Andrew Moore

PAC stands for "Probably Approximately Correct" and concerns a nice formalism for deciding how much data you need to collect in order for a given classifier to achieve a given probability of correct predictions on a given fraction of future test data. The resulting estimate is somewhat conservative but still represents an interesting avenue by which computer science has tried to muscle in on the kind of analytical problem that you would normally find in a statistics department.

Download Tutorial Slides (PDF format)

Powerpoint Format: The Powerpoint originals of these slides are freely available to anyone who wishes to use them for their own work, or who wishes to teach using them in an academic institution. Please email Andrew Moore at awm@cs.cmu.edu if you would like him to send them to you. The only restriction is that they are not freely available for use as teaching materials in classes or tutorials outside degree-granting academic institutions.

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