Notes
A working set of notes on machine learning, mathematics, and computer science, written for myself and kept public. Everything is linked to everything else; the map below is the real table of contents.
The map
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Maps of content: long indexes that open onto an entire subject.
Transformers and LLMs
Transformers and LLMs model token sequences by repeatedly mixing contextual information across positions. The useful mental model is: tokenization creates discrete symbols…
23 links
Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement learning studies agents that learn by acting in an environment and receiving reward. The useful mental model is: an MDP defines the interaction, value functions…
18 links
Statistics Fundamentals
Statistics studies inference from finite data. The useful mental model is: probability goes from model to possible data; statistics goes from observed data back to uncertain…
16 links
Neural Networks
Neural networks learn composed functions from data. The useful mental model is: layers apply differentiable transformations, nonlinearities make the composition expressive, and…
16 links
Classical Machine Learning
Classical machine learning studies how models generalize from data without relying on large neural networks. The useful mental model is: choose a hypothesis class, define a loss…
15 links
Linear Algebra
Linear algebra studies vector spaces and linear maps between them. The useful mental model is: vectors live in spaces, bases give coordinates, matrices represent transformations…
13 links
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Favorite textbooks
A few textbooks I’ve loved and kept coming back to throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies.
Mathematics for Machine LearningDeisenroth, Faisal, and Ong
Introduction to ProbabilityBlitzstein and Hwang
Introduction to AlgorithmsCormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern ApproachRussell and Norvig
Deep LearningGoodfellow, Bengio, and Courville
Reinforcement Learning: An IntroductionSutton and Barto
Additional resources
A short list of lectures, papers, and write-ups I loved and found useful.