The point is that they took a large number of documents, which are clearly labelled as to language, gave it as a training set to the machine, and they now have a classifier that lets you input random text and tells you the language it was probably written in.
In principle you can do this with any data set and any set of discrete outcomes.
In general, though, you should expect that the resulting classifier won't give you much insight on why it came up with the answers that it did. Plus it frequently is less accurate than a trained human. But it is much, much cheaper.
they now have a classifier that lets you input random text and tells you the language it was probably written in.
Incidentally, Google Translate does this and starts guessing the source language as you start typing. I found it interesting that when you type a single character, w is guessed as Polish, i is Norwegian, s is Czech, e is Portuguese...
Whenever I see the term "prediction" applied to software, I immediately think of the books "The Eudaemonic Pie" and "The Predictors." I guess they've spoiled me.
Comments
The point is that they took a large number of documents, which are clearly labelled as to language, gave it as a training set to the machine, and they now have a classifier that lets you input random text and tells you the language it was probably written in.
In principle you can do this with any data set and any set of discrete outcomes.
In general, though, you should expect that the resulting classifier won't give you much insight on why it came up with the answers that it did. Plus it frequently is less accurate than a trained human. But it is much, much cheaper.
they now have a classifier that lets you input random text and tells you the language it was probably written in.
Incidentally, Google Translate does this and starts guessing the source language as you start typing. I found it interesting that when you type a single character, w is guessed as Polish, i is Norwegian, s is Czech, e is Portuguese...
Frequency of first-character of words in those languages.
Whenever I see the term "prediction" applied to software, I immediately think of the books "The Eudaemonic Pie" and "The Predictors." I guess they've spoiled me.