Understanding the Mathematics behind Gradient Descent.
A simple mathematical intuition behind one of the commonly used optimization algorithms in Machine Learning.
“Premature optimization is the root of all evil.”
― Donald Ervin Knuth
Agile is a pretty well-known term in the software development process. The basic idea behind it is simple: build something quickly, ➡️ get it out there, ➡️ get some feedback ➡️ make changes depending upon the feedback ➡️ repeat the process. The goal is to get the product near the user and guide you with feedback to obtain the best possible product with the least error. Also, the steps taken for improvement need to be small and should constantly involve the user. In a way, an Agile software development process involves rapid iterations. The idea of — start with a solution as soon as possible, measure and iterate as frequently as possible, is Gradient descent under the hood.
Objective
Gradient descent algorithm is an iterative process that takes us to the minimum of a function(barring some caveats). The formula below sums up the entire Gradient Descent algorithm in a single line.