Statistics and Machine Learning
In machine learning, the term "ground truth" refers to the accuracy of the training set's classification for supervised learning techniques. This is used in statistical models to prove or disprove research hypotheses. The verb "ground truthing" refers to the process of gathering the proper objective data for this test. Compare with Gold standard (test).
Bayesian spam filtering is a common example of supervised learning. In this system, the algorithm is manually taught the differences between spam and non-spam. This depends on the ground truth of the messages used to train the algorithm; inaccuracies in that ground truth will correlate to inaccuracies in the resulting spam/non-spam verdicts.
Read more about this topic: Ground Truth
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