9.2 Feature Engineering
9.2.1 What is Feature Engineering?
Feature engineering is a crucial aspect of machine learning that involves the creation of new features from existing ones, as well as selecting only the most relevant features that contribute to the model's performance. This process can involve transforming features into a more suitable form, such as scaling or normalizing them. By doing this, we aim to improve the model's accuracy, predictive power, or interpretability.
Feature engineering is a complex and iterative process that requires a deep understanding of the problem domain and the data. It involves testing different combinations of features, analyzing their impact on the model, and fine-tuning the feature set to optimize the performance of the model.
Furthermore, feature engineering is not a one-time task, but rather an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and improvement to ensure the model stays relevant and effective.