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Linear Regression Is Better Than Machine Learning

The hype around AI/ML that is gripping the present-day IT industry is very real, but sometimes it’s only a marketing tactic leveraged by vendors to grab the attention of the buyers. It doesn’t always require a complex ML model to get things done. That is not to say that ML models are not useful, they are incredibly useful, and therefore should be reserved for complex things that cannot be accomplished with simpler models.

Image: Sulagna Saha (c) Gestalt IT

Instead, companies often apply advanced Machine Learning models to do things that could very easily be eliminated. That’s just an overkill, or worse, a waste. Alternately, a lot can be achieved easily with strategic use of linear regression methods, telling apart the essential from the non-essential for example. In some cases, linear regression can achieve even better results than complex Machine Learning.

Justin Warren, a long time Field Day delegate, has a very interesting read on this. In his article- “Linear Regression Is Better Than Machine Learning”, he looks at the AI/ML bubble in IT through his witty and humorous lens. He writes,

I remain convinced that 90% of what vendors are calling machine learning or AI is three linear regressions in a trench coat.

Give his article “Linear Regression Is Better Than Machine Learning” a read for his point of view on this.

About the author

Sulagna Saha

Sulagna Saha is a writer at Gestalt IT where she covers all the latest in enterprise IT. She has written widely on miscellaneous topics. On gestaltit.com she writes about the hottest technologies in Cloud, AI, Security and sundry.

A writer by day and reader by night, Sulagna can be found busy with a book or browsing through a bookstore in her free time. She also likes cooking fancy things on leisurely weekends. Traveling and movies are other things high on her list of passions. Sulagna works out of the Gestalt IT office in Hudson, Ohio.