Microsoft Certified: Azure AI

Fundamentals

Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: AI

Overview
Artificial Intelligence (AI) empowers amazing new solutions and experiences; and
Microsoft Azure provides easy to use services to help you get started.

Introduction to AI
AI enables us to build amazing software that can improve health care, enable
people to overcome physical disadvantages, empower smart infrastructure,
create incredible entertainment experiences, and even save the planet!
What is AI?

Simply put, AI is software that imitates human behaviors and capabilities.

Key workloads include:

 Machine learning - This is often the foundation for an AI system, and is

the way we "teach" a computer model to make predictions and draw
conclusions from data.
 Computer vision - Capabilities within AI to interpret the world visually
through cameras, video, and images.
 Natural language processing - Capabilities within AI for a computer
to interpret written or spoken language, and respond in kind.
 Document intelligence - Capabilities within AI that deal with
managing, processing, and using high volumes of data found in forms
and documents.
 Knowledge mining - Capabilities within AI to extract information from
large volumes of often unstructured data to create a searchable
knowledge store.
 Generative AI - Capabilities within AI that create original content in a
variety of formats including natural language, image, code, and more.

Understand machine learning

Machine Learning is the foundation for most AI solutions. Since the 1950's,
researchers, often known as data scientists, have worked on different
approaches to AI. Most modern applications of AI have their origins in
machine learning, a branch of AI that combines computer science and
mathematics.

Let's start by looking at a real-world example of how machine learning can

be used to solve a difficult problem.

Sustainable farming techniques are essential to maximize food production

while protecting a fragile environment. The Yield, an agricultural technology
company based in Australia, uses sensors, data, and machine learning to
help farmers make informed decisions related to weather, soil, and plant
conditions.

How machine learning works

So how do machines learn?

The answer is, from data. In today's world, we create huge volumes of data
as we go about our everyday lives. From the text messages, emails, and
social media posts we send to the photographs and videos we take on our
phones, we generate massive amounts of information. More data still is
created by millions of sensors in our homes, cars, cities, public transport
infrastructure, and factories.

Data scientists can use all of that data to train machine learning models that
can make predictions and inferences based on the relationships they find in
the data.

Machine learning models try to capture the relationship between data. For
example, suppose an environmental conservation organization wants
volunteers to identify and catalog different species of wildflower using a
phone app. The following animation shows how machine learning can be
used to enable this scenario.

1. A team of botanists and scientists collect data on wildflower samples.

2. The team labels the samples with the correct species.
3. The labeled data is processed using an algorithm that finds relationships
between the features of the samples and the labeled species.
4. The results of the algorithm are encapsulated in a model.
5. When new samples are found by volunteers, the model can identify the
correct species label.

Approaches to AI have advanced to complete tasks of much greater

complexity. These complex models form the basis of AI capabilities.
Machine learning in Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure provides the Azure Machine Learning service - a cloud-

based platform for creating, managing, and publishing machine learning
models. Azure Machine Learning Studio offers multiple authoring
experiences such as:

 Automated machine learning: this feature enables non-experts to

quickly create an effective machine learning model from data.
 Azure Machine Learning designer: a graphical interface enabling no-
code development of machine learning solutions.
 Data metric visualization: analyze and optimize your experiments
with visualization.
 Notebooks: write and run your own code in managed Jupyter Notebook
servers that are directly integrated in the studio.

Understand computer vision

Computer Vision is an area of AI that deals with visual processing. Let's
explore some of the possibilities that computer vision brings.

The Seeing AI app is a great example of the power of computer vision.

Designed for the blind and low vision community, the Seeing AI app
harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world and describe nearby
people, text and objects.

Computer Vision models and capabilities

Most computer vision solutions are based on machine learning models that
can be applied to visual input from cameras, videos, or images. The following
table describes common computer vision tasks.

Expand table
Task Description

Image classification

Image classification involves training a machine learning model to classify images based on their cont
traffic monitoring solution you might use an image classification model to classify images based on th
contain, such as taxis, buses, cyclists, and so on.

Object detection

Object detection machine learning models are trained to classify individual objects within an image, a
location with a bounding box. For example, a traffic monitoring solution might use object detection to
of different classes of vehicle.
Task Description

Semantic
segmentation

Semantic segmentation is an advanced machine learning technique in which individual pixels in the im
according to the object to which they belong. For example, a traffic monitoring solution might overlay
"mask" layers to highlight different vehicles using specific colors.

Image analysis

You can create solutions that combine machine learning models with advanced image analysis techni
information from images, including "tags" that could help catalog the image or even descriptive capti
the scene shown in the image.
Task Description

Face detection,
analysis, and
recognition

Face detection is a specialized form of object detection that locates human faces in an image. This can
classification and facial geometry analysis techniques to recognize individuals based on their facial fea

Optical character
recognition (OCR)

Optical character recognition is a technique used to detect and read text in images. You can use OCR
photographs (for example, road signs or store fronts) or to extract information from scanned docume
invoices, or forms.

Computer vision services in Microsoft Azure

You can use Microsoft's Azure AI Vision to develop computer vision

solutions. The service features are available for use and testing in the Azure
Vision Studio and other programming languages. Some features of Azure AI
Vision include:
  Image Analysis: capabilities for analyzing images and video, and
extracting descriptions, tags, objects, and text.
 Face: capabilities that enable you to build face detection and facial
recognition solutions.
 Optical Character Recognition (OCR): capabilities for extracting
printed or handwritten text from images, enabling access to a digital
version of the scanned text.

Understand natural language processing

Natural language processing (NLP) is the area of AI that deals with creating software that
understands written and spoken language.

NLP enables you to create software that can:

 Analyze and interpret text in documents, email messages, and other sources.
 Interpret spoken language and synthesize speech responses.
 Automatically translate spoken or written phrases between languages.
 Interpret commands and determine appropriate actions.

For example, Starship Commander is a virtual reality (VR) game from Human Interact that takes
place in a science fiction world. The game uses natural language processing to enable players to
control the narrative and interact with in-game characters and starship systems.

Natural language processing in Microsoft Azure

You can use Microsoft's Azure AI Language to build natural language processing solutions.
Some features of Azure AI Language include understanding and analyzing text, training
conversational language models that can understand spoken or text-based commands, and
building intelligent applications.

Microsoft's Azure AI Speech is another service that can be used to build natural language
processing solutions. Azure AI Speech features include speech recognition and synthesis, real-
time translations, conversation transcriptions, and more.

You can explore Azure AI Language features in the Azure Language Studio and Azure AI
Speech features in the Azure Speech Studio. The service features are available for use and
testing in the studios and other programming languages.
Understand document
intelligence and knowledge
mining
Document Intelligence is the area of AI that deals with managing,
processing, and using high volumes of a variety of data found in forms and
documents. Document intelligence enables you to create software that can
automate processing for contracts, health documents, financial forms and
more.

Document intelligence in Microsoft Azure

You can use Microsoft's Azure AI Document Intelligence to build
solutions that manage and accelerate data collection from scanned
documents. Features of Azure AI Document Intelligence help automate
document processing in applications and workflows, enhance data-
driven strategies, and enrich document search capabilities. You can
use prebuilt models to add intelligent document processing for
invoices, receipts, health insurance cards, tax forms, and more. You
can also use Azure AI Document Intelligence to create custom models
with your own labeled datasets. The service features are available for
use and testing in the Document Intelligence Studio and other
programming languages.
This example shows information extracted from a tax form using Azure AI
Document Intelligence.

Knowledge Mining
Knowledge mining is the term used to describe solutions that involve
extracting information from large volumes of often unstructured data
to create a searchable knowledge store.

Knowledge mining in Microsoft Azure

One Microsoft knowledge mining solution is Azure AI Search, an
enterprise, search solution that has tools for building indexes. The
indexes can then be used for internal only use, or to enable searchable
content on public facing internet assets.

Azure AI Search can utilize the built-in AI capabilities of Azure AI services

such as image processing, document intelligence, and natural language
processing to extract data. The product's AI capabilities makes it possible to
index previously unsearchable documents and to extract and surface
insights from large amounts of data quickly.
In this example, a travel web site uses Azure AI Search to power searching
for information about destinations based on information extracted from
images or text using AI services.

Tip

Learn how a global engineering company uses knowledge mining to create

more accurate bid proposals and reclaim the time it would take to manually
compile them in this case study

Understand generative AI
Generative AI describes a category of capabilities within AI that create
original content. People typically interact with generative AI that has been
built into chat applications. Generative AI applications take in natural
language input, and return appropriate responses in a variety of formats
including natural language, image, code, and audio.

Generative AI in Microsoft Azure

Azure OpenAI Service is Microsoft's cloud solution for deploying,
customizing, and hosting generative AI models. It brings together the
best of OpenAI's cutting edge models and APIs with the security and
scalability of the Azure cloud platform.

Azure OpenAI Service supports many generative model choices that can
serve different needs. You can use Azure AI Studio to create generative AI
solutions, such as custom copilot chat-based assistants that use Azure
OpenAI Service models
In this example, an Azure OpenAI Service model is used to power a copilot
application that can be used to generate original content in response to
user prompts, such as a request to write a cover letter.

Tip

Learn how a large manufacturing company uses Azure OpenAI to foster

better communication and collaboration in this case study

Challenges and risks with AI

Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool that can be used to greatly benefit the
world. However, like any tool, it must be used responsibly.

The following table shows some of the potential challenges and risks facing
an AI application developer.

Challenge or Risk Example

Bias can affect results A loan-approval model discriminates by gender due to bias in the data with
which it was trained
Errors may cause harm An autonomous vehicle experiences a system failure and causes a collision
Data could be exposed A medical diagnostic bot is trained using sensitive patient data, which is stored
insecurely
Solutions may not work for A home automation assistant provides no audio output for visually impaired
everyone users
Users must trust a complex An AI-based financial tool makes investment recommendations - what are they
system based on?
Who's liable for AI-driven An innocent person is convicted of a crime based on evidence from facial
decisions? recognition – who's responsible?

Understand Responsible AI
At Microsoft, AI software development is guided by a set of six principles, designed to ensure
that AI applications provide amazing solutions to difficult problems without any unintended
negative consequences.

Fairness

AI systems should treat all people fairly. For example, suppose you create a machine learning
model to support a loan approval application for a bank. The model should predict whether the
loan should be approved or denied without bias. This bias could be based on gender, ethnicity, or
other factors that result in an unfair advantage or disadvantage to specific groups of applicants.

Azure Machine Learning includes the capability to interpret models and quantify the extent to
which each feature of the data influences the model's prediction. This capability helps data
scientists and developers identify and mitigate bias in the model.

Another example is Microsoft's implementation of Responsible AI with the Face service, which
retires facial recognition capabilities that can be used to try to infer emotional states and identity
attributes. These capabilities, if misused, can subject people to stereotyping, discrimination or
unfair denial of services.
Reliability and safety

AI systems should perform reliably and safely. For example, consider an AI-based software
system for an autonomous vehicle; or a machine learning model that diagnoses patient symptoms
and recommends prescriptions. Unreliability in these kinds of systems can result in substantial
risk to human life.

AI-based software application development must be subjected to rigorous testing and

deployment management processes to ensure that they work as expected before release.

Privacy and security

AI systems should be secure and respect privacy. The machine learning models on which AI
systems are based rely on large volumes of data, which may contain personal details that must be
kept private. Even after the models are trained and the system is in production, privacy and
security need to be considered. As the system uses new data to make predictions or take action,
both the data and decisions made from the data may be subject to privacy or security concerns.

Inclusiveness

AI systems should empower everyone and engage people. AI should bring benefits to all parts of
society, regardless of physical ability, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or other factors.

Transparency

AI systems should be understandable. Users should be made fully aware of the purpose of the
system, how it works, and what limitations may be expected.

Accountability

People should be accountable for AI systems. Designers and developers of AI-based solutions
should work within a framework of governance and organizational principles that ensure the
solution meets ethical and legal standards that are clearly defined.

The principles of responsible AI can help you understand some of the challenges facing
developers as they try to create ethical AI solutions.

Further resources
For more resources to help you put the responsible AI principles into practice,
see https://www.microsoft.com/ai/responsible-ai-resources.
To see these policies in action you can read about Microsoft’s framework for building AI
systems responsibly.

Summary
Artificial Intelligence enables the creation of powerful solutions to many
kinds of problems. AI systems can exhibit human characteristics to analyze
the world around them, make predictions or inferences, and act on them in
ways that we could only imagine a short time ago.

With this power, comes responsibility. As developers of AI solutions, we must

apply principles that ensure that everyone benefits from AI without
disadvantaging any individual or section of society.

MODULE : Fundamentals of machine learning

Machine learning is the basis for most modern artificial intelligence solutions.
A familiarity with the core concepts on which machine learning is based is an
important foundation for understanding AI.

Learning objectives
After completing this module, you will be able to:
 Describe core concepts of machine learning
 Identify different types of machine learning
 Describe considerations for training and evaluating machine learning
models
 Describe core concepts of deep learning
 Use automated machine learning in Azure Machine Learning service

Introduction
Machine learning is in many ways the intersection of two disciplines - data
science and software engineering. The goal of machine learning is to use
data to create a predictive model that can be incorporated into a software
application or service. To achieve this goal requires collaboration between
data scientists who explore and prepare the data before using it to train a
machine learning model, and software developers who integrate the models
into applications where they're used to predict new data values (a process
known as inferencing).

In this module, you'll explore some of the core concepts on which machine
learning is based, learn how to identify different kinds of machine learning
models, and examine the ways in which machine learning models are trained
and evaluated. Finally, you'll learn how to use Microsoft Azure Machine
Learning to train and deploy a machine learning model, without needing to
write any code.

Note
Machine learning is based on mathematical and statistical techniques, some
of which are described at a high level in this module. Don't worry if you're
not a mathematical expert though! The goal of the module is to help you
gain an intuition of how machine learning works - we'll keep the mathematics
to the minimum required to understand the core concepts.

What is machine learning?

Machine learning has its origins in statistics and mathematical modeling of
data. The fundamental idea of machine learning is to use data from past
observations to predict unknown outcomes or values. For example:

 The proprietor of an ice cream store might use an app that combines
historical sales and weather records to predict how many ice creams
they're likely to sell on a given day, based on the weather forecast.
 A doctor might use clinical data from past patients to run automated
tests that predict whether a new patient is at risk from diabetes based
on factors like weight, blood glucose level, and other measurements.
 A researcher in the Antarctic might use past observations automate the
identification of different penguin species (such as Adelie, Gentoo,
or Chinstrap) based on measurements of a bird's flippers, bill, and other
physical attributes.

Machine learning as a function

Because machine learning is based on mathematics and statistics, it's

common to think about machine learning models in mathematical terms.
Fundamentally, a machine learning model is a software application that
encapsulates a function to calculate an output value based on one or more
input values. The process of defining that function is known as training. After
the function has been defined, you can use it to predict new values in a
process called inferencing.

Let's explore the steps involved in training and inferencing.

1. The training data consists of past observations. In most cases, the

observations include the observed attributes or features of the
thing being observed, and the known value of the thing you want
to train a model to predict (known as the label).

In mathematical terms, you'll often see the features referred to

using the shorthand variable name x, and the label referred to
as y. Usually, an observation consists of multiple feature values,
so x is actually a vector (an array with multiple values), like
this: [x1,x2,x3,...].

To make this clearer, let's consider the examples described

previously:

 In the ice cream sales scenario, our goal is to train a model

that can predict the number of ice cream sales based on the
weather. The weather measurements for the day
(temperature, rainfall, windspeed, and so on) would be
the features (x), and the number of ice creams sold on each
day would be the label (y).
 In the medical scenario, the goal is to predict whether or not
a patient is at risk of diabetes based on their clinical
measurements. The patient's measurements (weight, blood
glucose level, and so on) are the features (x), and the
 likelihood of diabetes (for example, 1 for at risk, 0 for not at
risk) is the label (y).
 In the Antarctic research scenario, we want to predict the
species of a penguin based on its physical attributes. The
key measurements of the penguin (length of its flippers,
width of its bill, and so on) are the features (x), and the
species (for example, 0 for Adelie, 1 for Gentoo, or 2 for
Chinstrap) is the label (y).

2. An algorithm is applied to the data to try to determine a

relationship between the features and the label, and generalize
that relationship as a calculation that can be performed on x to
calculate y. The specific algorithm used depends on the kind of
predictive problem you're trying to solve (more about this later),
but the basic principle is to try to fit a function to the data, in
which the values of the features can be used to calculate the
label.

3. The result of the algorithm is a model that encapsulates the

calculation derived by the algorithm as a function - let's call it f. In
mathematical notation:

y = f(x)

4. Now that the training phase is complete, the trained model can be
used for inferencing. The model is essentially a software program
that encapsulates the function produced by the training process.
You can input a set of feature values, and receive as an output a
prediction of the corresponding label. Because the output from the
model is a prediction that was calculated by the function, and not
an observed value, you'll often see the output from the function
shown as ŷ (which is rather delightfully verbalized as "y-hat").

Types of machine learning

There are multiple types of machine learning, and you must apply the appropriate type
depending on what you're trying to predict. A breakdown of common types of machine learning
is shown in the following diagram.
Supervised machine learning

Supervised machine learning is a general term for machine learning algorithms in which the
training data includes both feature values and known label values. Supervised machine learning
is used to train models by determining a relationship between the features and labels in past
observations, so that unknown labels can be predicted for features in future cases.

Regression

Regression is a form of supervised machine learning in which the label predicted by the model is
a numeric value. For example:

 The number of ice creams sold on a given day, based on the temperature, rainfall, and
windspeed.
 The selling price of a property based on its size in square feet, the number of bedrooms it
contains, and socio-economic metrics for its location.
 The fuel efficiency (in miles-per-gallon) of a car based on its engine size, weight, width,
height, and length.

Classification

Classification is a form of supervised machine learning in which the label represents a

categorization, or class. There are two common classification scenarios.
Binary classification

In binary classification, the label determines whether the observed item is (or isn't) an instance
of a specific class. Or put another way, binary classification models predict one of two mutually
exclusive outcomes. For example:

 Whether a patient is at risk for diabetes based on clinical metrics like weight, age, blood
glucose level, and so on.
 Whether a bank customer will default on a loan based on income, credit history, age, and
other factors.
 Whether a mailing list customer will respond positively to a marketing offer based on
demographic attributes and past purchases.

In all of these examples, the model predicts a binary true/false or positive/negative prediction for
a single possible class.

Multiclass classification

Multiclass classification extends binary classification to predict a label that represents one of
multiple possible classes. For example,

 The species of a penguin (Adelie, Gentoo, or Chinstrap) based on its physical

measurements.
 The genre of a movie (comedy, horror, romance, adventure, or science fiction) based on its
cast, director, and budget.

In most scenarios that involve a known set of multiple classes, multiclass classification is used to
predict mutually exclusive labels. For example, a penguin can't be both a Gentoo and an Adelie.
However, there are also some algorithms that you can use to train multilabel classification
models, in which there may be more than one valid label for a single observation. For example, a
movie could potentially be categorized as both science fiction and comedy.

Unsupervised machine learning

Unsupervised machine learning involves training models using data that consists only
of feature values without any known labels. Unsupervised machine learning algorithms
determine relationships between the features of the observations in the training data.

Clustering

The most common form of unsupervised machine learning is clustering. A clustering algorithm
identifies similarities between observations based on their features, and groups them into discrete
clusters. For example:
  Group similar flowers based on their size, number of leaves, and number of petals.
 Identify groups of similar customers based on demographic attributes and purchasing
behavior.

In some ways, clustering is similar to multiclass classification; in that it categorizes observations

into discrete groups. The difference is that when using classification, you already know the
classes to which the observations in the training data belong; so the algorithm works by
determining the relationship between the features and the known classification label. In
clustering, there's no previously known cluster label and the algorithm groups the data
observations based purely on similarity of features.

In some cases, clustering is used to determine the set of classes that exist before training a
classification model. For example, you might use clustering to segment your customers into
groups, and then analyze those groups to identify and categorize different classes of customer
(high value - low volume, frequent small purchaser, and so on). You could then use your
categorizations to label the observations in your clustering results and use the labeled data to
train a classification model that predicts to which customer category a new customer might
belong.

Regression
Regression models are trained to predict numeric label values based on
training data that includes both features and known labels. The process for
training a regression model (or indeed, any supervised machine learning
model) involves multiple iterations in which you use an appropriate algorithm
(usually with some parameterized settings) to train a model, evaluate the
model's predictive performance, and refine the model by repeating the
training process with different algorithms and parameters until you achieve
an acceptable level of predictive accuracy.
The diagram shows four key elements of the training process for supervised
machine learning models:

1. Split the training data (randomly) to create a dataset with which to train
the model while holding back a subset of the data that you'll use to
validate the trained model.
2. Use an algorithm to fit the training data to a model. In the case of a
regression model, use a regression algorithm such as linear regression.
3. Use the validation data you held back to test the model by predicting
labels for the features.
4. Compare the known actual labels in the validation dataset to the labels
that the model predicted. Then aggregate the differences between
the predicted and actual label values to calculate a metric that indicates
how accurately the model predicted for the validation data.

After each train, validate, and evaluate iteration, you can repeat the process
with different algorithms and parameters until an acceptable evaluation
metric is achieved.

Example - regression

Let's explore regression with a simplified example in which we'll train a

model to predict a numeric label (y) based on a single feature value (x). Most
real scenarios involve multiple feature values, which adds some complexity;
but the principle is the same.

For our example, let's stick with the ice cream sales scenario we discussed
previously. For our feature, we'll consider the temperature (let's assume the
value is the maximum temperature on a given day), and the label we want to
train a model to predict is the number of ice creams sold that day. We'll start
with some historic data that includes records of daily temperatures (x) and
ice cream sales (y):

Expand table

Temperature (x) Ice cream sales (y)

51 1

52 0

67 14

65 14

70 23

69 20

72 23

75 26

73 22

81 30

78 26

83 36

Training a regression model

We'll start by splitting the data and using a subset of it to train a model.
Here's the training dataset:

Expand table

Temperature (x) Ice cream sales (y)

51 1

65 14

69 20
Temperature (x) Ice cream sales (y)

72 23

75 26

81 30

To get an insight of how these x and y values might relate to one another,
we can plot them as coordinates along two axes, like this:

Now we're ready to apply an algorithm to our training data and fit it to a
function that applies an operation to x to calculate y. One such algorithm
is linear regression, which works by deriving a function that produces a
straight line through the intersections of the x and y values while minimizing
the average distance between the line and the plotted points, like this:
The line is a visual representation of the function in which the slope of the
line describes how to calculate the value of y for a given value of x. The line
intercepts the x axis at 50, so when x is 50, y is 0. As you can see from the
axis markers in the plot, the line slopes so that every increase of 5 along
the x axis results in an increase of 5 up the y axis; so when x is 55, y is 5;
when x is 60, y is 10, and so on. To calculate a value of y for a given value
of x, the function simply subtracts 50; in other words, the function can be
expressed like this:

f(x) = x-50

You can use this function to predict the number of ice creams sold on a day
with any given temperature. For example, suppose the weather forecast tells
us that tomorrow it will be 77 degrees. We can apply our model to
calculate 77-50 and predict that we'll sell 27 ice creams tomorrow.

But just how accurate is our model?

Evaluating a regression model

To validate the model and evaluate how well it predicts, we held back some
data for which we know the label (y) value. Here's the data we held back:
Temperature (x) Ice cream sales (y)

52 0

67 14

70 23

73 22

78 26

83 36

We can use the model to predict the label for each of the observations in this
dataset based on the feature (x) value; and then compare the predicted
label (ŷ) to the known actual label value (y).

Using the model we trained earlier, which encapsulates the function f(x) =
x-50, results in the following predictions:

Temperature (x) Actual sales (y) Predicted sales (ŷ)

52 0 2

67 14 17

70 23 20

73 22 23

78 26 28

83 36 33

We can plot both the predicted and actual labels against the feature values
like this:
The predicted labels are calculated by the model so they're on the function
line, but there's some variance between the ŷ values calculated by the
function and the actual y values from the validation dataset; which is
indicated on the plot as a line between the ŷ and y values that shows how
far off the prediction was from the actual value.

Regression evaluation metrics

Based on the differences between the predicted and actual values, you can
calculate some common metrics that are used to evaluate a regression
model.

Mean Absolute Error (MAE)

The variance in this example indicates by how many ice creams each
prediction was wrong. It doesn't matter if the prediction
was over or under the actual value (so for example, -3 and +3 both indicate
a variance of 3). This metric is known as the absolute error for each
prediction, and can be summarized for the whole validation set as the mean
absolute error (MAE).
In the ice cream example, the mean (average) of the absolute errors (2, 3, 3,
1, 2, and 3) is 2.33.

Mean Squared Error (MSE)

The mean absolute error metric takes all discrepancies between predicted
and actual labels into account equally. However, it may be more desirable to
have a model that is consistently wrong by a small amount than one that
makes fewer, but larger errors. One way to produce a metric that "amplifies"
larger errors by squaring the individual errors and calculating the mean of
the squared values. This metric is known as the mean squared
error (MSE).

In our ice cream example, the mean of the squared absolute values (which
are 4, 9, 9, 1, 4, and 9) is 6.

Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE)

The mean squared error helps take the magnitude of errors into account, but
because it squares the error values, the resulting metric no longer
represents the quantity measured by the label. In other words, we can say
that the MSE of our model is 6, but that doesn't measure its accuracy in
terms of the number of ice creams that were mispredicted; 6 is just a
numeric score that indicates the level of error in the validation predictions.

If we want to measure the error in terms of the number of ice creams, we

need to calculate the square root of the MSE; which produces a metric called,
unsurprisingly, Root Mean Squared Error. In this case √6, which
is 2.45 (ice creams).

Coefficient of determination (R2)

All of the metrics so far compare the discrepancy between the predicted and
actual values in order to evaluate the model. However, in reality, there's
some natural random variance in the daily sales of ice cream that the model
takes into account. In a linear regression model, the training algorithm fits a
straight line that minimizes the mean variance between the function and the
known label values. The coefficient of determination (more commonly
referred to as R2 or R-Squared) is a metric that measures the proportion of
variance in the validation results that can be explained by the model, as
opposed to some anomalous aspect of the validation data (for example, a
day with a highly unusual number of ice creams sales because of a local
festival).
The calculation for R2 is more complex than for the previous metrics. It
compares the sum of squared differences between predicted and actual
labels with the sum of squared differences between the actual label values
and the mean of actual label values, like this:

R2 = 1- ∑(y-ŷ)2 ÷ ∑(y-ȳ)2

Don't worry too much if that looks complicated; most machine learning tools
can calculate the metric for you. The important point is that the result is a
value between 0 and 1 that describes the proportion of variance explained
by the model. In simple terms, the closer to 1 this value is, the better the
model is fitting the validation data. In the case of the ice cream regression
model, the R2 calculated from the validation data is 0.95.

Iterative training

The metrics described above are commonly used to evaluate a regression

model. In most real-world scenarios, a data scientist will use an iterative
process to repeatedly train and evaluate a model, varying:

 Feature selection and preparation (choosing which features to include in

the model, and calculations applied to them to help ensure a better fit).
 Algorithm selection (We explored linear regression in the previous
example, but there are many other regression algorithms)
 Algorithm parameters (numeric settings to control algorithm behavior,
more accurately called hyperparameters to differentiate them from
the x and y parameters).

After multiple iterations, the model that results in the best evaluation metric
that's acceptable for the specific scenario is selected.

Binary classification
Completed100 XP

 12 minutes

Classification, like regression, is a supervised machine learning technique;

and therefore follows the same iterative process of training, validating, and
evaluating models. Instead of calculating numeric values like a regression
model, the algorithms used to train classification models
calculate probability values for class assignment and the evaluation metrics
used to assess model performance compare the predicted classes to the
actual classes.
Binary classification algorithms are used to train a model that predicts one of
two possible labels for a single class. Essentially, predicting true or false. In
most real scenarios, the data observations used to train and validate the
model consist of multiple feature (x) values and a y value that is
either 1 or 0.

Example - binary classification

To understand how binary classification works, let's look at a simplified

example that uses a single feature (x) to predict whether the label y is 1 or
0. In this example, we'll use the blood glucose level of a patient to predict
whether or not the patient has diabetes. Here's the data with which we'll
train the model:

Expand table

Blood glucose (x) Diabetic? (y)

67 0

103 1

114 1

72 0

116 1

65 0

Training a binary classification model

To train the model, we'll use an algorithm to fit the training data to a function
that calculates the probability of the class label being true (in other words,
that the patient has diabetes). Probability is measured as a value between
0.0 and 1.0, such that the total probability for all possible classes is 1.0. So
for example, if the probability of a patient having diabetes is 0.7, then
there's a corresponding probability of 0.3 that the patient isn't diabetic.
There are many algorithms that can be used for binary classification, such
as logistic regression, which derives a sigmoid (S-shaped) function with
values between 0.0 and 1.0, like this:

Note

Despite its name, in machine learning logistic regression is used for

classification, not regression. The important point is the logistic nature of the
function it produces, which describes an S-shaped curve between a lower
and upper value (0.0 and 1.0 when used for binary classification).

The function produced by the algorithm describes the probability of y being

true (y=1) for a given value of x. Mathematically, you can express the
function like this:

f(x) = P(y=1 | x)

For three of the six observations in the training data, we know that y is
definitely true, so the probability for those observations that y=1 is 1.0 and
for the other three, we know that y is definitely false, so the probability
that y=1 is 0.0. The S-shaped curve describes the probability distribution so
that plotting a value of x on the line identifies the corresponding probability
that y is 1.

The diagram also includes a horizontal line to indicate the threshold at which
a model based on this function will predict true (1) or false (0). The threshold
lies at the mid-point for y (P(y) = 0.5). For any values at this point or above,
the model will predict true (1); while for any values below this point it will
predict false (0). For example, for a patient with a blood glucose level of 90,
the function would result in a probability value of 0.9. Since 0.9 is higher
than the threshold of 0.5, the model would predict true (1) - in other words,
the patient is predicted to have diabetes.

Evaluating a binary classification model

As with regression, when training a binary classification model you hold back
a random subset of data with which to validate the trained model. Let's
assume we held back the following data to validate our diabetes classifier:

Expand table

Blood glucose (x) Diabetic? (y)

66 0

107 1

112 1

71 0

87 1

89 1

Applying the logistic function we derived previously to the x values results in

the following plot.
Based on whether the probability calculated by the function is above or
below the threshold, the model generates a predicted label of 1 or 0 for each
observation. We can then compare the predicted class labels (ŷ) to
the actual class labels (y), as shown here:

Expand table

Blood glucose (x) Actual diabetes diagnosis (y) Predicted diabetes diagnosis (ŷ)

66 0 0

107 1 1

112 1 1

71 0 0

87 1 0

89 1 1

Binary classification evaluation metrics

The first step in calculating evaluation metrics for a binary classification

model is usually to create a matrix of the number of correct and incorrect
predictions for each possible class label:
This visualization is called a confusion matrix, and it shows the prediction
totals where:

 ŷ=0 and y=0: True negatives (TN)

 ŷ=1 and y=0: False positives (FP)
 ŷ=0 and y=1: False negatives (FN)
 ŷ=1 and y=1: True positives (TP)

The arrangement of the confusion matrix is such that correct (true)

predictions are shown in a diagonal line from top-left to bottom-right. Often,
color-intensity is used to indicate the number of predictions in each cell, so a
quick glance at a model that predicts well should reveal a deeply shaded
diagonal trend.

Accuracy

The simplest metric you can calculate from the confusion matrix
is accuracy - the proportion of predictions that the model got right. Accuracy
is calculated as:

(TN+TP) ÷ (TN+FN+FP+TP)

In the case of our diabetes example, the calculation is:

(2+3) ÷ (2+1+0+3)

=5÷6

= 0.83

So for our validation data, the diabetes classification model produced correct
predictions 83% of the time.
Accuracy might initially seem like a good metric to evaluate a model, but
consider this. Suppose 11% of the population has diabetes. You could create
a model that always predicts 0, and it would achieve an accuracy of 89%,
even though it makes no real attempt to differentiate between patients by
evaluating their features. What we really need is a deeper understanding of
how the model performs at predicting 1 for positive cases and 0 for negative
cases.

Recall

Recall is a metric that measures the proportion of positive cases that the
model identified correctly. In other words, compared to the number of
patients who have diabetes, how many did the model predict to have
diabetes?

The formula for recall is:

TP ÷ (TP+FN)

For our diabetes example:

3 ÷ (3+1)

=3÷4

= 0.75

So our model correctly identified 75% of patients who have diabetes as

having diabetes.

Precision

Precision is a similar metric to recall, but measures the proportion of

predicted positive cases where the true label is actually positive. In other
words, what proportion of the patients predicted by the model to have
diabetes actually have diabetes?

The formula for precision is:

TP ÷ (TP+FP)

For our diabetes example:

3 ÷ (3+0)
=3÷3

= 1.0

So 100% of the patients predicted by our model to have diabetes do in fact

have diabetes.

F1-score

F1-score is an overall metric that combined recall and precision. The formula
for F1-score is:

(2 x Precision x Recall) ÷ (Precision + Recall)

For our diabetes example:

(2 x 1.0 x 0.75) ÷ (1.0 + 0.75)

= 1.5 ÷ 1.75

= 0.86

Area Under the Curve (AUC)

Another name for recall is the true positive rate (TPR), and there's an
equivalent metric called the false positive rate (FPR) that is calculated
as FP÷(FP+TN). We already know that the TPR for our model when using a
threshold of 0.5 is 0.75, and we can use the formula for FPR to calculate a
value of 0÷2 = 0.

Of course, if we were to change the threshold above which the model

predicts true (1), it would affect the number of positive and negative
predictions; and therefore change the TPR and FPR metrics. These metrics
are often used to evaluate a model by plotting a received operator
characteristic (ROC) curve that compares the TPR and FPR for every possible
threshold value between 0.0 and 1.0:
The ROC curve for a perfect model would go straight up the TPR axis on the
left and then across the FPR axis at the top. Since the plot area for the curve
measures 1x1, the area under this perfect curve would be 1.0 (meaning that
the model is correct 100% of the time). In contrast, a diagonal line from the
bottom-left to the top-right represents the results that would be achieved by
randomly guessing a binary label; producing an area under the curve of 0.5.
In other words, given two possible class labels, you could reasonably expect
to guess correctly 50% of the time.

In the case of our diabetes model, the curve above is produced, and
the area under the curve (AUC) metric is 0.875. Since the AUC is higher
than 0.5, we can conclude the model performs better at predicting whether
or not a patient has diabetes than randomly guessing.

Multiclass classification
Completed100 XP

 12 minutes

Multiclass classification is used to predict to which of multiple possible

classes an observation belongs. As a supervised machine learning technique,
it follows the same iterative train, validate, and evaluate process as
regression and binary classification in which a subset of the training data is
held back to validate the trained model.
Example - multiclass classification

Multiclass classification algorithms are used to calculate probability values

for multiple class labels, enabling a model to predict the most probable class
for a given observation.

Let's explore an example in which we have some observations of penguins,

in which the flipper length (x) of each penguin is recorded. For each
observation, the data includes the penguin species (y), which is encoded as
follows:

 0: Adelie
 1: Gentoo
 2: Chinstrap
Note

As with previous examples in this module, a real scenario would include

multiple feature (x) values. We'll use a single feature to keep things simple.

Expand table

Flipper length (x) Species (y)

167 0

172 0

225 2

197 1

189 1

232 2

158 0

Training a multiclass classification model

To train a multiclass classification model, we need to use an algorithm to fit

the training data to a function that calculates a probability value for each
possible class. There are two kinds of algorithm you can use to do this:
  One-vs-Rest (OvR) algorithms
 Multinomial algorithms

One-vs-Rest (OvR) algorithms

One-vs-Rest algorithms train a binary classification function for each class,

each calculating the probability that the observation is an example of the
target class. Each function calculates the probability of the observation being
a specific class compared to any other class. For our penguin species
classification model, the algorithm would essentially create three binary
classification functions:

 f0(x) = P(y=0 | x)
 f1(x) = P(y=1 | x)
 f2(x) = P(y=2 | x)

Each algorithm produces a sigmoid function that calculates a probability

value between 0.0 and 1.0. A model trained using this kind of algorithm
predicts the class for the function that produces the highest probability
output.

Multinomial algorithms

As an alternative approach is to use a multinomial algorithm, which creates a

single function that returns a multi-valued output. The output is a vector (an
array of values) that contains the probability distribution for all possible
classes - with a probability score for each class which when totaled add up to
1.0:

f(x) =[P(y=0|x), P(y=1|x), P(y=2|x)]

An example of this kind of function is a softmax function, which could

produce an output like the following example:

[0.2, 0.3, 0.5]

The elements in the vector represent the probabilities for classes 0, 1, and 2
respectively; so in this case, the class with the highest probability is 2.

Regardless of which type of algorithm is used, the model uses the resulting
function to determine the most probable class for a given set of features (x)
and predicts the corresponding class label (y).
Evaluating a multiclass classification model

You can evaluate a multiclass classifier by calculating binary classification

metrics for each individual class. Alternatively, you can calculate aggregate
metrics that take all classes into account.

Let's assume that we've validated our multiclass classifier, and obtained the
following results:

Expand table

Flipper length (x) Actual species (y) Predicted species (ŷ)

165 0 0

171 0 0

205 2 1

195 1 1

183 1 1

221 2 2

214 2 2

The confusion matrix for a multiclass classifier is similar to that of a binary

classifier, except that it shows the number of predictions for each
combination of predicted (ŷ) and actual class labels (y):

From this confusion matrix, we can determine the metrics for each individual
class as follows:

Expand table
Class TP TN FP FN Accuracy Recall Precision F1-Score

0 2 5 0 0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

1 2 4 1 0 0.86 1.0 0.67 0.8

2 2 4 0 1 0.86 0.67 1.0 0.8

To calculate the overall accuracy, recall, and precision metrics, you use the
total of the TP, TN, FP, and FN metrics:

 Overall accuracy = (13+6)÷(13+6+1+1) = 0.90

 Overall recall = 6÷(6+1) = 0.86
 Overall precision = 6÷(6+1) = 0.86

The overall F1-score is calculated using the overall recall and precision
metrics:

 Overall F1-score = (2x0.86x0.86)÷(0.86+0.86) = 0.86

Clustering
Completed100 XP

 10 minutes

Clustering is a form of unsupervised machine learning in which observations

are grouped into clusters based on similarities in their data values, or
features. This kind of machine learning is considered unsupervised because
it doesn't make use of previously known label values to train a model. In a
clustering model, the label is the cluster to which the observation is
assigned, based only on its features.

Example - clustering

For example, suppose a botanist observes a sample of flowers and records

the number of leaves and petals on each flower:
There are no known labels in the dataset, just two features. The goal is not to
identify the different types (species) of flower; just to group similar flowers
together based on the number of leaves and petals.

Expand table

Leaves (x1) Petals (x2)

0 5

0 6

1 3

1 3

1 6

1 8

2 3

2 7

2 8

Training a clustering model

There are multiple algorithms you can use for clustering. One of the most
commonly used algorithms is K-Means clustering, which consists of the
following steps:

1. The feature (x) values are vectorized to define n-dimensional

coordinates (where n is the number of features). In the flower example,
we have two features: number of leaves (x1) and number of petals (x2).
So, the feature vector has two coordinates that we can use to
conceptually plot the data points in two-dimensional space ([x1,x2])
2. You decide how many clusters you want to use to group the flowers - call
this value k. For example, to create three clusters, you would use
a k value of 3. Then k points are plotted at random coordinates. These
points become the center points for each cluster, so they're
called centroids.
3. Each data point (in this case a flower) is assigned to its nearest centroid.
4. Each centroid is moved to the center of the data points assigned to it
based on the mean distance between the points.
5. After the centroid is moved, the data points may now be closer to a
different centroid, so the data points are reassigned to clusters based on
the new closest centroid.
 6. The centroid movement and cluster reallocation steps are repeated until
the clusters become stable or a predetermined maximum number of
iterations is reached.

The following animation shows this process:

Evaluating a clustering model

Since there's no known label with which to compare the predicted cluster
assignments, evaluation of a clustering model is based on how well the
resulting clusters are separated from one another.

There are multiple metrics that you can use to evaluate cluster separation,
including:

 Average distance to cluster center: How close, on average, each

point in the cluster is to the centroid of the cluster.
 Average distance to other center: How close, on average, each point
in the cluster is to the centroid of all other clusters.
 Maximum distance to cluster center: The furthest distance between
a point in the cluster and its centroid.
 Silhouette: A value between -1 and 1 that summarizes the ratio of
distance between points in the same cluster and points in different
clusters (The closer to 1, the better the cluster separation).
Deep learning
Completed100 XP

 12 minutes

Deep learning is an advanced form of machine learning that tries to emulate

the way the human brain learns. The key to deep learning is the creation of
an artificial neural network that simulates electrochemical activity in
biological neurons by using mathematical functions, as shown here.

Expand table

Biological neural network Artificial neural network

Neurons fire in response to electrochemical stimuli. When fired, Each neuron is a function that operates on an input value
the signal is passed to connected neurons. The function is wrapped in an activation function that de
pass the output on.

Artificial neural networks are made up of multiple layers of neurons -

essentially defining a deeply nested function. This architecture is the reason
the technique is referred to as deep learning and the models produced by it
are often referred to as deep neural networks (DNNs). You can use deep
neural networks for many kinds of machine learning problem, including
regression and classification, as well as more specialized models for natural
language processing and computer vision.

Just like other machine learning techniques discussed in this module, deep
learning involves fitting training data to a function that can predict a label (y)
based on the value of one or more features (x). The function (f(x)) is the
outer layer of a nested function in which each layer of the neural network
encapsulates functions that operate on x and the weight (w) values
associated with them. The algorithm used to train the model involves
iteratively feeding the feature values (x) in the training data forward through
the layers to calculate output values for ŷ, validating the model to evaluate
how far off the calculated ŷ values are from the known y values (which
quantifies the level of error, or loss, in the model), and then modifying the
weights (w) to reduce the loss. The trained model includes the final weight
values that result in the most accurate predictions.

Example - Using deep learning for classification

To better understand how a deep neural network model works, let's explore
an example in which a neural network is used to define a classification model
for penguin species.

The feature data (x) consists of some measurements of a penguin.

Specifically, the measurements are:

 The length of the penguin's bill.

 The depth of the penguin's bill.
 The length of the penguin's flippers.
 The penguin's weight.

In this case, x is a vector of four values, or

mathematically, x=[x1,x2,x3,x4].

The label we're trying to predict (y) is the species of the penguin, and that
there are three possible species it could be:

 Adelie
 Gentoo
 Chinstrap
This is an example of a classification problem, in which the machine learning
model must predict the most probable class to which an observation
belongs. A classification model accomplishes this by predicting a label that
consists of the probability for each class. In other words, y is a vector of
three probability values; one for each of the possible classes: [P(y=0|x),
P(y=1|x), P(y=2|x)].

The process for inferencing a predicted penguin class using this network is:

1. The feature vector for a penguin observation is fed into the input layer
of the neural network, which consists of a neuron for each x value. In
this example, the following x vector is used as the input: [37.3, 16.8,
19.2, 30.0]
2. The functions for the first layer of neurons each calculate a weighted
sum by combining the x value and w weight, and pass it to an activation
function that determines if it meets the threshold to be passed on to the
next layer.
3. Each neuron in a layer is connected to all of the neurons in the next
layer (an architecture sometimes called a fully connected network) so
the results of each layer are fed forward through the network until they
reach the output layer.
4. The output layer produces a vector of values; in this case, using
a softmax or similar function to calculate the probability distribution for
the three possible classes of penguin. In this example, the output vector
is: [0.2, 0.7, 0.1]
5. The elements of the vector represent the probabilities for classes 0, 1,
and 2. The second value is the highest, so the model predicts that the
species of the penguin is 1 (Gentoo).

How does a neural network learn?

The weights in a neural network are central to how it calculates predicted

values for labels. During the training process, the model learns the weights
that will result in the most accurate predictions. Let's explore the training
process in a little more detail to understand how this learning takes place.
 1. The training and validation datasets are defined, and the training
features are fed into the input layer.
2. The neurons in each layer of the network apply their weights (which are
initially assigned randomly) and feed the data through the network.
3. The output layer produces a vector containing the calculated values
for ŷ. For example, an output for a penguin class prediction might
be [0.3. 0.1. 0.6].
4. A loss function is used to compare the predicted ŷ values to the
known y values and aggregate the difference (which is known as
the loss). For example, if the known class for the case that returned the
output in the previous step is Chinstrap, then the y value should
be [0.0, 0.0, 1.0]. The absolute difference between this and
the ŷ vector is [0.3, 0.1, 0.4]. In reality, the loss function calculates the
aggregate variance for multiple cases and summarizes it as a
single loss value.
5. Since the entire network is essentially one large nested function, an
optimization function can use differential calculus to evaluate the
influence of each weight in the network on the loss, and determine how
they could be adjusted (up or down) to reduce the amount of overall
loss. The specific optimization technique can vary, but usually involves
a gradient descent approach in which each weight is increased or
decreased to minimize the loss.
6. The changes to the weights are backpropagated to the layers in the
network, replacing the previously used values.
7. The process is repeated over multiple iterations (known as epochs) until
the loss is minimized and the model predicts acceptably accurately.
Note

While it's easier to think of each case in the training data being passed
through the network one at a time, in reality the data is batched into
matrices and processed using linear algebraic calculations. For this reason,
neural network training is best performed on computers with graphical
processing units (GPUs) that are optimized for vector and matrix
manipulation.
Azure Machine Learning
Completed100 XP

 6 minutes

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning is a cloud service for training, deploying,

and managing machine learning models. It's designed to be used by data
scientists, software engineers, devops professionals, and others to manage
the end-to-end lifecycle of machine learning projects, including:

 Exploring data and preparing it for modeling.

 Training and evaluating machine learning models.
 Registering and managing trained models.
 Deploying trained models for use by applications and services.
 Reviewing and applying responsible AI principles and practices.

Features and capabilities of Azure Machine Learning

Azure Machine Learning provides the following features and capabilities to

support machine learning workloads:

 Centralized storage and management of datasets for model training and

evaluation.
 On-demand compute resources on which you can run machine learning
jobs, such as training a model.
 Automated machine learning (AutoML), which makes it easy to run
multiple training jobs with different algorithms and parameters to find
the best model for your data.
 Visual tools to define orchestrated pipelines for processes such as model
training or inferencing.
 Integration with common machine learning frameworks such as MLflow,
which make it easier to manage model training, evaluation, and
deployment at scale.
 Built-in support for visualizing and evaluating metrics for responsible AI,
including model explainability, fairness assessment, and others.

Provisioning Azure Machine Learning resources

The primary resource required for Azure Machine Learning is an Azure

Machine Learning workspace, which you can provision in an Azure
subscription. Other supporting resources, including storage accounts,
container registries, virtual machines, and others are created automatically
as needed.
To create an Azure Machine Learning workspace, you can use the Azure
portal, as shown here:

Azure Machine Learning studio

After you've provisioned an Azure Machine Learning workspace, you can use
it in Azure Machine Learning studio; a browser-based portal for managing
your machine learning resources and jobs.

In Azure Machine Learning studio, you can (among other things):

 Import and explore data.

 Create and use compute resources.
 Run code in notebooks.
 Use visual tools to create jobs and pipelines.
 Use automated machine learning to train models.
 View details of trained models, including evaluation metrics, responsible
AI information, and training parameters.
 Deploy trained models for on-request and batch inferencing.
  Import and manage models from a comprehensive model catalog.

The screenshot shows the Metrics page for a trained model in Azure
Machine Learning studio, in which you can see the evaluation metrics for a
trained multiclass classification model.

Exercise - Explore Automated

Machine Learning in Azure
Machine Learning
In this exercise, explore the automated machine learning capability in Azure
Machine Learning studio, and use it to train and evaluate a machine learning
model.
Note

If you don't already have one, you can sign up for an Azure subscription,
which includes free credits for the first 30 days.

Launch the exercise and follow the instructions.

Explore Automated Machine Learning

in Azure Machine Learning
In this exercise, you’ll use the automated machine learning feature in Azure
Machine Learning to train and evaluate a machine learning model. You’ll
then deploy and test the trained model.

This exercise should take approximately 30 minutes to complete.

Create an Azure Machine Learning workspace

To use Azure Machine Learning, you need to provision an Azure Machine

Learning workspace in your Azure subscription. Then you’ll be able to use
Azure Machine Learning studio to work with the resources in your workspace.
Tip: If you already have an Azure Machine Learning workspace, you can use that and skip to
the next task.

1. Sign into the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com using your

Microsoft credentials.
2. Select + Create a resource, search for Machine Learning, and create a
new Azure Machine Learning resource with the following settings:
o Subscription: Your Azure subscription.
o Resource group: Create or select a resource group.
o Name: Enter a unique name for your workspace.
o Region: Select the closest geographical region.
o Storage account: Note the default new storage account that will be
created for your workspace.
o Key vault: Note the default new key vault that will be created for your
workspace.
o Application insights: Note the default new application insights
resource that will be created for your workspace.
o Container registry: None (one will be created automatically the first
time you deploy a model to a container).
 3. Select Review + create, then select Create. Wait for your workspace
to be created (it can take a few minutes), and then go to the deployed
resource.

4. Select Launch studio (or open a new browser tab and navigate
to https://ml.azure.com, and sign into Azure Machine Learning studio
using your Microsoft account). Close any messages that are displayed.
5. In Azure Machine Learning studio, you should see your newly created
workspace. If not, select All workspaces in the left-hand menu and then
select the workspace you just created.

Use automated machine learning to train a model

Automated machine learning enables you to try multiple algorithms and

parameters to train multiple models, and identify the best one for your data.
In this exercise, you’ll use a dataset of historical bicycle rental details to train
a model that predicts the number of bicycle rentals that should be expected
on a given day, based on seasonal and meteorological features.
Citation: The data used in this exercise is derived from Capital Bikeshare and is used in
accordance with the published data license agreement.

1. In Azure Machine Learning studio, view the Automated ML page

(under Authoring).

2. Create a new Automated ML job with the following settings,

using Next as required to progress through the user interface:

Basic settings:

o Job name: mslearn-bike-automl

o New experiment name: mslearn-bike-rental
o Description: Automated machine learning for bike rental prediction
o Tags: none

Task type & data:

o Select task type: Regression

o Select dataset: Create a new dataset with the following settings:

o Data type:
 Name: bike-rentals
 Description: Historic bike rental data
 Type: Table (mltable)

o Data source:
 Select From local files
 o Destination storage type:
 Datastore type: Azure Blob Storage
 Name: workspaceblobstore

o MLtable selection:
 Upload folder: Download and unzip the folder that
contains the two files you need to
upload https://aka.ms/bike-rentals

Select Create. After the dataset is created, select the bike-

rentals dataset to continue to submit the Automated ML job.

Task settings:

o Task type: Regression

o Dataset: bike-rentals
o Target column: rentals (integer)
o Additional configuration settings:

o Primary metric: NormalizedRootMeanSquaredError

o Explain best model: Unselected

o Enable ensemble stacking: Unselected

o Use all supported models: Unselected. You’ll restrict the job

to try only a few specific algorithms.

o Allowed models: Select

only RandomForest and LightGBM — normally you’d want to
try as many as possible, but each model added increases the
time it takes to run the job.

o Limits: Expand this section

o Max trials: 3

o Max concurrent trials: 3

o Max nodes: 3

o Metric score threshold: 0.085 (so that if a model achieves a

normalized root mean squared error metric score of 0.085 or
less, the job ends.)

o eXPERIMENT Timeout: 15

o Iteration timeout: 15
 o Enable early termination: Selected

o Validation and test:

o Validation type: Train-validation split

o Percentage of validation data: 10

o Test dataset: None

Compute:

o Select compute type: Serverless

o Virtual machine type: CPU
o Virtual machine tier: Dedicated
o Virtual machine size: Standard_DS3_V2*
o Number of instances: 1

* If your subscription restricts the VM sizes available to you, choose

any available size.

3. Submit the training job. It starts automatically.

4. Wait for the job to finish. It might take a while — now might be a good
time for a coffee break!

Review the best model

When the automated machine learning job has completed, you can review
the best model it trained.

1. On the Overview tab of the automated machine learning job, note the
best model
 summary.

Note You may see a message under the status “Warning: User specified exit score
reached…”. This is an expected message. Please continue to the next step.

2. Select the text under Algorithm name for the best model to view its
details.

3. Select the Metrics tab and select

the residuals and predicted_true charts if they are not already
selected.

Review the charts which show the performance of the model.

The residuals chart shows the residuals (the differences between
predicted and actual values) as a histogram.
The predicted_true chart compares the predicted values against the
true values.

Deploy and test the model

1. On the Model tab for the best model trained by your automated machine
learning job, select Deploy and use the Real-time endpoint option to
deploy the model with the following settings:
o Virtual machine: Standard_DS3_v2
o Instance count: 3
o Endpoint: New
o Endpoint name: Leave the default or make sure it’s globally unique
o Deployment name: Leave default
o Inferencing data collection: Disabled
 o Package Model: Disabled
2. Wait for the deployment to start - this may take a few seconds. The Deploy
status for the predict-rentals endpoint will be indicated in the main part of
the page as Running.
3. Wait for the Deploy status to change to Succeeded. This may take 5-10
minutes.

Test the deployed service

Now you can test your deployed service.

1. In Azure Machine Learning studio, on the left hand menu,

select Endpoints and open the predict-rentals real-time endpoint.

2. On the predict-rentals real-time endpoint page view the Test tab.

3. In the Input data to test endpoint pane, replace the template JSON
with the following input data:

codeCopy

{
"input_data": {
"columns": [
"day",
"mnth",
"year",
"season",
"holiday",
"weekday",
"workingday",
"weathersit",
"temp",
"atemp",
"hum",
"windspeed"
],
"index": [0],
"data": [[1,1,2022,2,0,1,1,2,0.3,0.3,0.3,0.3]]
}
}

4. Click the Test button.

5. Review the test results, which include a predicted number of rentals

based on the input features - similar to this:
 codeCopy

[
352.3564674945718
]

The test pane took the input data and used the model you trained to
return the predicted number of rentals.

Let’s review what you have done. You used a dataset of historical bicycle
rental data to train a model. The model predicts the number of bicycle
rentals expected on a given day, based on seasonal and
meteorological features.

Clean-up

The web service you created is hosted in an Azure Container Instance. If you
don’t intend to experiment with it further, you should delete the endpoint to
avoid accruing unnecessary Azure usage.

1. In Azure Machine Learning studio, on the Endpoints tab, select

the predict-rentals endpoint. Then select Delete and confirm that
you want to delete the endpoint.

Deleting your compute ensures your subscription won’t be charged for

compute resources. You will however be charged a small amount for
data storage as long as the Azure Machine Learning workspace exists
in your subscription. If you have finished exploring Azure Machine
Learning, you can delete the Azure Machine Learning workspace and
associated resources.

To delete your workspace:

1. In the Azure portal, in the Resource groups page, open the resource group
you specified when creating your Azure Machine Learning workspace.
2. Click Delete resource group, type the resource group name to confirm you
want to delete it, and select Delete.

Summary
Machine learning is the foundation on which artificial intelligence is built. In
this module, you've learned about some of the core principles and concepts
on which machine learning is based, and about the different kinds of model
you can train and evaluate.

The module also introduced Azure Machine Learning; a cloud platform for
end-to-end machine learning operations, and gave you the opportunity to
use automated machine learning in Azure Machine Learning for yourself.

Tip

To learn more about Azure Machine Learning and its capabilities, see
the Azure Machine Learning page.

MODULE : Fundamentals of Azure AI services

In this module, you learn the fundamentals of how Azure AI services can be
used to build applications.

Learning objectives
 Understand applications Azure AI services can be used to build
 Understand how to access Azure AI services in the Azure portal
 Understand how to use Azure AI services keys and endpoint for
authentication
 Create and use an Azure AI services resource in a Content Safety Studio
setting

Introduction
Completed100 XP
 2 minutes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing our world and there’s hardly an industry
that hasn't been affected. From better healthcare to online safety, AI is
helping us to tackle some of society’s biggest issues.

Azure AI services are a portfolio of AI capabilities that unlock automation for

workloads in language, vision, intelligent search, content generation, and
much more. They are straightforward to implement and don’t require
specialist AI knowledge.

Organizations are using Azure AI services in innovative ways, such as

within robots to provide life-like companionship to older people by
expressing happiness, concern, and even laughter. In other use cases,
scientists are using AI to protect endangered species by identifying hard-to-
find animals in images. This was previously time-consuming and error-prone
work, which the Azure AI Vision service can complete quickly and with a high
degree of accuracy, freeing scientists to do other work.

In this module you will learn what Azure AI services are, and how you can
use them in your own applications.

AI services on the Azure platform

Completed100 XP

 4 minutes

Azure AI services are AI capabilities that can be built into web or mobile
applications, in a way that's straightforward to implement. These AI services
include image recognition, natural language processing, speech, AI-powered
search, and more. There are over a dozen different services that can be used
separately or together to add AI power to applications.

Let's take a look at some examples of what can be done with Azure AI
services. The Azure AI Content Safety service can be used to detect harmful
content within text or images, including violent or hateful content, and report
on its severity. The Azure AI Language service can be used to summarize
text, classify information, or extract key phrases. The Azure AI Speech
service provides powerful speech to text and text to speech capabilities,
allowing speech to be accurately transcribed into text, or text to natural
sounding voice audio.

Azure AI services are based on three principles that dramatically improve

speed-to-market:

 Prebuilt and ready to use

 Accessed through APIs
 Available on Azure

Azure AI services are prebuilt and ready to use

AI has been prohibitive for all but the largest technology companies because
of several factors, including the large amounts of data required to train
models, the massive amount of computing power needed, and the budget to
hire specialist programmers. Azure AI services make AI accessible to
businesses of all sizes by using pre-trained machine learning models to
deliver AI as a service. Azure AI services use high-performance Azure
computing to deploy advanced AI models as resources, making decades of
research available to developers of all skill levels.

Azure AI services are a portfolio of services, with capabilities suitable for use
cases across sectors and industries.

For example, in education, Immersive Reader is being used to support

students by adapting to their requirements. Learners can have varying
needs, such as wanting to read more slowly, get words or text translated into
another language, or see pictures to aid their understanding. Immersive
Reader helps students with different needs learn at their own pace, and in
their own way.

While Azure AI services can be used without any modification, some AI

services can be customized to better fit specific requirements. Customization
capabilities in Azure AI Vision, Azure AI Speech, and Azure OpenAI all allow
you to add data to existing models.

For example, in sport, athletes, and coaches are customizing Azure AI Vision
to improve performance and reduce injury. One application allows surfers to
upload a video and receive AI-generated insights and analysis. These
insights can then be used by coaches, medics, judges, and event
broadcasters.

Azure AI services are accessed through APIs

Azure AI services are designed to be used in different development

environments, with minimal coding. Developers can access AI services
through REST APIs, client libraries, or integrate them with tools such as Logic
Apps and Power Automate. APIs are application programming interfaces that
define the information that is required for one component to use the services
of the other. APIs enable software components to communicate, so one side
can be updated without stopping the other from working. Find out more
about development options for Azure AI services here.
Azure AI services are available on Azure

AI services are cloud-based and accessed through Azure resource. This

means that they're managed in the same way as other Azure services, such
as platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or a
managed database service. The Azure platform and Resource Manager
provide a consistent framework for all your Azure services, from creating or
deleting resources, to availability and billing.

Note

In some situations, AI has the potential to be used in ways that might

compromise an individual's privacy or rights. Microsoft has six Responsible
AI principles to help ensure AI services are ethical and fair. Because of this,
certain Azure AI services are restricted to ensure they're used responsibly.

Create Azure AI service resources

Completed100 XP

 3 minutes
Azure AI services are cloud-based, and like all Azure services you need to
create a resource to use them. There are two types of AI service resources:
multi-service or single-service. Your development requirements and how you
want costs to be billed determine the types of resources you need.

 Multi-service resource: a resource created in the Azure portal that

provides access to multiple Azure AI services with a single key and
endpoint. Use the resource Azure AI services when you need several
AI services or are exploring AI capabilities. When you use an Azure AI
services resource, all your AI services are billed together.
 Single-service resources: a resource created in the Azure portal that
provides access to a single Azure AI service, such as Speech, Vision,
Language, etc. Each Azure AI service has a unique key and endpoint.
These resources might be used when you only require one AI service or
want to see cost information separately.

You can create a resource several ways, such as in the Azure portal.

How to use the Azure portal to create an Azure AI services resource

To create an Azure AI services resource, sign in to the Azure portal with

Contributor access and select Create a resource. To create a multi-services
resource search for Azure AI services in the marketplace.
To create a single-service resource, search for the specific Azure AI service
such as Face, Language, or Content Safety, and so on. Most AI services have
a free price tier to allow you to explore their capabilities. After
clicking Create for the resource you require, you will be prompted to
complete details of your subscription, the resource group to contain the
resource, the region, a unique name, and the price tier.

Use Azure AI services

Completed100 XP

 3 minutes

Once you create an Azure AI service resource, you can build applications using the REST API,
software development kits (SDKs), or visual studio interfaces.
Using service studio interfaces

Studio interfaces provide a friendly user interface to explore Azure AI services. There are
different studios for different Azure AI services, such as Vision Studio, Language Studio, Speech
Studio, and the Content Safety Studio. You can test out Azure AI services using the samples
provided, or experiment with your own content. A studio-based approach allows you to explore,
demo, and evaluate Azure AI services regardless of your experience with AI or coding.

Associate the AI service resource

Before you can use an AI service resource, you must associate it with the studio you want to use
on the Settings page. Select the resource, and then select Use Resource. You are then ready to
explore the Azure AI service within the studio.
As an example, let's look at the Azure AI Content Safety service, which identifies harmful text or
images. To explore what the Content Safety service does, let's use the Content Safety Studio.
First create either a multi-service Azure AI services resource, or a single-service Content Safety
resource. Then, on the Content Safety Studio Settings page, select the resource, and select Use
Resource. The AI service you created is now associated with the Content Safety Studio, and
ready to be used.

Note

When developers incorporate an AI service into their applications, they often use a SDK or
the REST API.

Understand authentication for

Azure AI services
Completed100 XP
 3 minutes

You've now learned how to create an AI service resource and associate it

with an Azure AI studio. But how do you ensure that only those authorized
have access to your AI service? This is done through authentication, the
process of verifying that the user or service is who they say they are, and
that they are authorized to use the service.
Most Azure AI services are accessed through a RESTful API, although there
are other ways. The API defines what information is passed between two
software components: the Azure AI service and whatever is using it. Having a
clearly defined interface is important, because if the AI service is updated,
your application must continue to work correctly.

Part of what an API does is to handle authentication. Whenever a request is

made to use an AI services resource, that request must be authenticated. For
example, your subscription and AI service resource is verified to ensure you
have sufficient permissions to access it. This authentication process uses an
endpoint and a resource key.

The endpoint describes how to reach the AI service resource instance that
you want to use, in a similar way to the way a URL identifies a web site.
When you view the endpoint for your resource, it will look something like:

Copy
https://myaiservices29.cognitiveservices.azure.com/

The resource key protects the privacy of your resource. To ensure this is
always secure, the key can be changed periodically. You can view the
endpoint and key in the Azure portal under Resource Management and Keys
and Endpoint.
When you write code to access the AI service, the keys and endpoint must
be included in the authentication header. The authentication header sends
an authorization key to the service to confirm that the application can use
the resource. Learn more about different authentication requests to Azure AI
services here.

When you use a studio interface with Azure AI services, your credentials are
authenticated when you sign in, and a similar process is happening in the
background.
Exercise - Explore Azure AI
Services
In this exercise, use the Content Safety Studio to explore one of many Azure
AI services.

Note

If you don't already have one, you can sign up for an Azure subscription,
which includes free credits for the first 30 days.

Launch the exercise and follow the instructions.

Explore Azure AI Services

Azure AI services help users create AI applications with out-of-the-box and
pre-built and customizable APIs and models. In this exercise you will take a
look at one of the services, Azure AI Content Safety, in the Content Safety
Studio.

The Content Safety Studio enables you to explore how text and image
content can be moderated. You can run tests on sample text or images and
get a severity score ranging from safe to high for each category. In this lab
exercise you will create a single-service resource in the Content Safety
Studio and test its functionalities.
Note The goal of this exercise is to get a general sense of how Azure AI services are
provisioned and used. Content Safety is used as an example, but you are not expected to
gain a comprehensive knowledge of content safety in this exercise!
Navigate the Content Safety Studio

1. Open the Content Safety Studio. If you are not logged in, you will need
to sign in. Select Sign In on the top right of the screen. Use the email
and password associated with your Azure subscription to sign in.

2. The Content Safety Studio is set up like many other studios for Azure AI
services. On the menu at the top of the screen, click on the icon on the
left of Azure AI. You will see a drop-down list of other studios designed
for development with Azure AI services. You can click on the icon again
to hide the list.
Associate a resource with the studio

Before using the studio, you need to associate an Azure AI services resource
with the studio. Depending on the studio, you may find you need a specific
single-service resource, or can use a general multi-service resource. In the
case of the Content Safety Studio, you can use the service by creating a
single-service Content Safety resource or Azure AI services general multi-
service resource. In the steps below, we will create a single-service Content
Safety resource.

1. On the top right of the screen, click on the Settings icon.

1. On the Settings page, you will see a Directory tab and Resource tab. On
the Resource tab, select Create a new resource. This takes you to page to
create a resource in the Azure Portal.

Note The Directory tab allows users to select different directories from which to create
resources. You do not need to change its settings unless you wish to use a different
directory.
 1. On the Create Content Safety page in the Azure Portal, you need to configure
several details to create your resource. Configure it with the following
settings:
o Subscription: Your Azure subscription.
o Resource group: Select or create a resource group with a unique
name.
o Region: Choose any available region. If in eastern US, use “East US 2”.
o Name: Enter a unique name.
o Pricing tier: Free F0
2. Select Review + Create and review the configuration. Then select Create.
The screen will indicate when the deployment is complete.

Congrats! You’ve just created, or provisioned, an Azure AI services resource.

The one you provisioned in particular is a single-service Content Safety
service resource.

1. When the deployment is complete, open up a new tab and return to

the Content Safety Studio.

2. Select the Settings icon on the top right of the screen again. This time
you should see that your newly created resource has been added to
the list.
Note: If you are using a Cloud Slice subscription, you can skip steps #7-12 and go to step
#13. Otherwise, continue with step #7.

1. Select View all properties in Azure portal at the bottom of

the Settings screen.
1. In the Azure portal, select the Content Safety resource you just created. Then
on the left-hand pane, select Access Control (IAM). Then on the open pane,
select Add next to the plus sign, and select Add role assignment.

1. Search for Cognitive Services User in the list of roles, and select it.
Then select Next.
2. Use the following settings to assign yourself to the role:
o Assign access to: select user, group, or service principal
o Members: click on select members

o On the open Select members pane, find your name. Click on the
plus icon next to your name. Then click Select.

o Description: leave blank

3. Select Review and Assign, then select Review and Assign again to
add the role assignment.
4. Return to the Content Safety Studio
at https://contentsafety.cognitive.azure.com. Then select the Settings icon
on the top right of the screen.
 1. Select the Azure AI service resource you just created. Make sure
under Current role assignments you see both Cognitive services user,
and Owner.

1. Click Use resource on the bottom of the screen. You will be taken back to
the studio home page. Now you can begin using the studio with your newly
created resource.

Try out text moderation in the Content Safety Studio

1. On the Content Safety Studio home page, under Run moderation tests,
navigate to the Moderate text content box and click Try it out.
2. Under run a simple test, click Safe Content. Notice that text is displayed in
the box below.
3. Click Run test. Running a test calls the Content Safety Service’s deep
learning model. The deep learning model has already been trained to
recognize un-safe content.
4. In the Results panel, inspect the results. There are four severity levels from
safe to high, and four types of harmful content. Does the Content Safety AI
service consider this sample to be acceptable or not? What’s important to
note is that the results are within a confidence interval. A well-trained model,
like one of Azure AI’s out-of-the-box models, can return results that have a
high probability of matching what a human would label the result. Each time
you run a test, you call the model again.
5. Now try another sample. Select the text under Violent content with
misspelling. Check that the content is displayed in the box below.
 6. Click Run test and inspect the results in the Results panel again.

You can run tests on all the samples provided, then inspect the results.

Check out the keys and endpoint

These capabilities you tested can be programmed into all sorts of

applications. The keys and endpoint used for application development can be
found both in the Content Safety Studio and the Azure Portal.

1. In the Content Safety Studio, navigate back to the Settings page, with
the Resources tab selected. Look for the resource you used. Scroll across to
see the endpoint and key for your resource.
2. In the Azure Portal, you will see that these are the same endpoint
and different keys for your resource. To check it out, head to the Azure Portal.
Search for Content Safety on the top search bar. Find your resource and click
on it. On the left-hand menu, look under Resource Management for Keys and
Endpoints. Select Keys and Endpoints to view the endpoint and keys for
your resource.

After you have finished, you can delete the Content Safety resource from the
Azure Portal. Deleting the resource is a way to reduce costs that accrue
when the resource exists in the subscription. To do this, navigate to
the Overview page of your Content Safety resource. Select Delete at the
top of the screen.

Summary
Completed100 XP
 3 minutes

Azure AI services are easy to use AI capabilities made available as resources

on the Azure platform. Azure AI service capabilities include Language,
Speech, Vision, Decision, Search, and Azure OpenAI.

In this module we’ve used several different terms relating to AI services.

Here's a recap:

 API – application programming interfaces (APIs) enable software

components to communicate, so one side can be updated without
stopping the other from working.
 Artificial Intelligence (AI) – computer programs that respond in
ways that are normally associated with human reasoning,
learning, and thought.
 Azure AI services – a portfolio of AI services that can be
incorporated into applications quickly and easily without specialist
 knowledge. Azure AI services is also the name for the multi-
service resource created in the Azure portal that provides access
to several different Azure AI services with a single key and
endpoint.
 Endpoint – the location of a resource, such as an Azure AI
service.
 Key – a private string that is used to authenticate a request.
 Machine learning – the ability for computer programs to learn
from large amounts of data, in a process known as "training".
 Multi-service resource – the AI service resource created in the
Azure portal that provides access to a bundle of AI services.
 Single-service resource – a resource created in the Azure portal
that provides access to a single Azure AI service, such as Speech,
Vision, Language, etc. Each Azure AI service has a unique key and
endpoint.
 RESTful API – a scalable web application programming interface
used to access Azure AI services.

You can find out more about Azure AI services in the service documentation.