Glossary · Phase 3 · Machine learning
Mean absolute error
The average size of the misses, ignoring whether each was too high or too low. A miss twice as big costs twice as much.
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Squared error punishes one big miss far more than several small ones. That's why a single outlier can drag a squared-error model.
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Loss functions · One number that says how wrong the model is. About 25 minutes.
Other terms from the same lesson
- absolute value: A number with its minus sign dropped: the absolute value of -3 is 3.
- Huber loss: A loss that treats small misses like squared error and big misses like absolute error, so a few wild values can't dominate training.
- loss: A single number saying how wrong a model's predictions are. Training tries to make it small.
- mean squared error: A loss: square each prediction's error and average them, so big mistakes count extra.
- quantile loss: A lopsided loss that charges more for misses in one direction, such as running out of stock costing more than overstocking.
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