Ensemble learning is used when you build component classifiers that are more accurate and independent from each other.
The correct answer to the question “When to use ensemble learning?” would be:
Ensemble learning is particularly useful in situations where you have multiple base models or algorithms that perform moderately well on their own but may have different strengths and weaknesses. Ensemble methods combine these models to improve overall predictive performance, robustness, and generalization ability. Here are some scenarios where ensemble learning can be beneficial:
- High Variance Models: When individual models have high variance, meaning they are sensitive to the noise in the training data and might overfit, ensemble methods can help by averaging out the predictions, reducing variance, and improving generalization.
- Model Diversity: Ensemble methods work best when the base models are diverse. If the base models capture different aspects of the data or make different errors, combining them can lead to better overall performance.
- Large Dataset: In cases where the dataset is large, ensemble methods can effectively handle the complexity and noise present in the data by combining the predictions from multiple models.
- Model Stability: Ensemble methods can increase the stability and reliability of predictions, especially in situations where individual models might perform poorly due to data limitations or noise.
- Model Selection: Ensemble learning can help in cases where it’s challenging to select a single best model. Instead of choosing one model, you can combine multiple models to achieve better performance.
- Complex Problems: For complex problems where no single model is capable of capturing the entire problem space, ensemble methods can combine multiple models to provide a more comprehensive solution.
Overall, ensemble learning is a powerful technique that can be applied in various machine learning tasks to improve predictive performance, robustness, and generalization ability. However, it’s important to consider the computational cost associated with training and maintaining multiple models when deciding to use ensemble learning.