Welcome to our journey into the heart of ensemble machine learning with the Random Forest algorithm. As an extension of decision trees, Random Forests operate a multitude of trees, creating a "forest." This lesson will equip you to understand and implement a basic Random Forest in Python, focusing on nuances of tree construction and aggregation within a forest. Let's get started!
Random Forest is a robust machine learning ensemble that builds upon many decision trees to solve regression and classification tasks. Each tree 'votes' for a particular class prediction, and the class with the majority votes becomes the final prediction of our model.
Random Forests rely significantly on specific core hyperparameters such as n_trees
, the number of trees in the forest. Increasing n_trees
generally improves performance but adds computational cost. max_depth
controls the depth or levels of individual trees, and random_state
introduces an element of brinkmanship into the feature selection and bootstrapping processes when creating each tree.
A decision tree, the foundational building block of a Random Forest, embraces a structure akin to a flowchart, with branches that denote decision points and leaves that represent class outcomes. A Random Forest's strength lies in its trees' diversification, each tree constructed uniquely to ensure variety in the forest.
Implementing our Random Forest begins by importing the libraries:
