According to the ISTQB Certified Tester AI Testing (CT-AI) syllabus, data acquisition, a critical step in data preparation for machine learning (ML) workflows, consists of three key activities:
* Identification:This step involves determining the types of data required for training and prediction. For example, in a self-driving car application, data types such as radar, video, laser imaging, and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data may be identified as necessary sources.
* Gathering:After identifying the required data types, the sources from which the data will be collected are determined, along with the appropriate collection methods. An example could be gathering financial data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and integrating it into an AI-based system.
* Labeling:This process involves annotating or tagging the collected data to make it meaningful for supervised learning models. Labeling is an essential activity that helps machine learning algorithms differentiate between categories and make accurate predictions.
These activities ensure that the data is suitable for training and testing machine learning models, forming the foundation of data preparation.