23/10/2024, 22:43 Semi-Supervised Learning in ML - GeeksforGeeks

Semi-Supervised Learning in ML
Last Updated : 21 May, 2024

Today’s Machine Learning algorithms can be broadly classified into three

categories, Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, and Reinforcement
Learning. Casting Reinforced Learning aside, the primary two categories of
Machine Learning problems are Supervised and Unsupervised Learning. The
basic difference between the two is that Supervised Learning datasets have
an output label associated with each tuple while Unsupervised Learning
datasets do not.

What is Semi-Supervised Learning?

Semi-supervised learning is a type of machine learning that falls in between
supervised and unsupervised learning. It is a method that uses a small
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amount of labeled data and a large amount of unlabeled data to train a
model. The goal of semi-supervised learning is to learn a function that can
accurately predict the output variable based on the input variables, similar to
supervised learning. However, unlike supervised learning, the algorithm is
trained on a dataset that contains both labeled and unlabeled data.

Semi-supervised learning is particularly useful when there is a large amount

of unlabeled data available, but it’s too expensive or difficult to label all of
it.

Semi-Supervised Learning Flow Chart

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Intuitively, one may imagine the three types of learning algorithms as

Supervised learning where a student is under the supervision of a teacher at
both home and school, Unsupervised learning where a student has to figure
out a concept himself and Semi-Supervised learning where a teacher
teaches a few concepts in class and gives questions as homework which are
based on similar concepts.

Examples of Semi-Supervised Learning

Text classification: In text classification, the goal is to classify a given text
into one or more predefined categories. Semi-supervised learning can be
used to train a text classification model using a small amount of labeled
data and a large amount of unlabeled text data.
Image classification: In image classification, the goal is to classify a given
image into one or more predefined categories. Semi-supervised learning
can be used to train an image classification model using a small amount
of labeled data and a large amount of unlabeled image data.
Anomaly detection: In anomaly detection, the goal is to detect patterns
or observations that are unusual or different from the norm

Assumptions followed by Semi-Supervised Learning

A Semi-Supervised algorithm assumes the following about the data

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1. Continuity Assumption: The algorithm assumes that the points which are
closer to each other are more likely to have the same output label.
2. Cluster Assumption: The data can be divided into discrete clusters and
points in the same cluster are more likely to share an output label.
3. Manifold Assumption: The data lie approximately on a manifold of a
much lower dimension than the input space. This assumption allows the
use of distances and densities which are defined on a manifold.

Applications of Semi-Supervised Learning

1. Speech Analysis: Since labeling audio files is a very intensive task, Semi-
Supervised learning is a very natural approach to solve this problem.
2. Internet Content Classification: Labeling each webpage is an impractical
and unfeasible process and thus uses Semi-Supervised learning
algorithms. Even the Google search algorithm uses a variant of Semi-
Supervised learning to rank the relevance of a webpage for a given query.
3. Protein Sequence Classification: Since DNA strands are typically very
large in size, the rise of Semi-Supervised learning has been imminent in
this field.

Disadvantages of Semi-Supervised Learning

The most basic disadvantage of any Supervised Learning algorithm is that
the dataset has to be hand-labeled either by a Machine Learning Engineer or
a Data Scientist. This is a very costly process, especially when dealing with
large volumes of data. The most basic disadvantage of any Unsupervised
Learning is that its application spectrum is limited.

To counter these disadvantages, the concept of Semi-Supervised Learning

was introduced. In this type of learning, the algorithm is trained upon a
combination of labeled and unlabelled data. Typically, this combination will
contain a very small amount of labeled data and a very large amount of
unlabelled data. The basic procedure involved is that first, the programmer
will cluster similar data using an unsupervised learning algorithm and then
use the existing labeled data to label the rest of the unlabelled data. The
typical use cases of such type of algorithm have a common property among
them – The acquisition of unlabelled data is relatively cheap while labeling
the said data is very expensive.

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