Why do we call it Supervised Learning?

Even with very little awareness about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, you might have come across the terms of supervised and unsupervised learning. But have you ever thought, "Why?". Why do we call it "Supervised"?

It is called supervised learning because algorithms that learn from the training dataset can be thought of as a guide supervising the learning process. We already know the correct answers; the algorithm iteratively makes predictions on the training data and is corrected by the guide. Learning stops when the algorithm achieves an acceptable level of performance.

Suppose we want to train a machine-learning algorithm that can detect the cat's presence inside the image. At the time of learning, algorithms try to verify their predictions with the true answers (also known as labels). Whenever their predictions come wrong, they get penalized.

Can't you relate this scenario to your school teacher or supervisor correcting your mistakes? That's why they are called supervised learning.

Enjoy learning! Enjoy thinking!