What is a loss function in machine learning?

Experience Level: Junior
Tags: Machine learning

Answer

A loss function is a function that measures the difference between the predicted output of a machine learning model and the true output or target variable. The loss function is used as the objective function to optimize the model during training, by adjusting the model parameters to minimize the loss. Different types of loss functions are used for different types of machine learning tasks, such as mean squared error for regression and cross-entropy for classification.
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