Understanding models that are interpretable by design
In Chapter 7, Choosing the Best AI Algorithm, we mentioned that more complex algorithm types, such as neural networks, are often used even though they provide very little benefit. You should favor keeping it simple as much as possible, following the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid). Not only may other models be simpler and easier to interpret, but they provide some fantastic results as well. Simple doesn't mean inferior.
We have looked at many models in this book that come with the ability to understand how the results were achieved without any special techniques. The algorithms we will cover now are as follows:
- Decision trees
- Linear/logistic regression
- KNN
We'll use a medical example, as mentioned earlier in the chapter. This dataset is a binary classifier for whether someone is at risk of heart disease or not. For this chapter, we'll keep the data preparation and other steps out...
