How does NLP differ from machine learning?

Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) are related but distinct fields. NLP is a specialized subdomain of machine learning focused on enabling machines to understand, interpret, and generate human language. Machine learning, in contrast, is a broader discipline that develops algorithms capable of learning patterns from data to make predictions or decisions. While NLP relies heavily on ML techniques, its unique focus on language data—text or speech—introduces specific challenges like ambiguity, context dependence, and syntactic complexity that general ML approaches don’t always address.

A key difference lies in the types of data and techniques used. Machine learning algorithms often work with structured numerical data (e.g., sales figures, sensor readings) and employ methods like regression, decision trees, or clustering. NLP, however, deals with unstructured text or audio data, requiring preprocessing steps like tokenization (splitting text into words or subwords) and embedding (converting words to numerical vectors). For example, training a sentiment analysis model (NLP) involves parsing sentences to identify emotional cues, while a generic ML model might predict housing prices based on numerical features like square footage. NLP also uses specialized architectures like transformers, which handle sequential data and context, whereas ML might use simpler models for tabular data.

Another distinction is the problem scope. NLP tackles tasks like machine translation, named entity recognition, or question answering—problems inherently tied to language structure. Machine learning, meanwhile, applies to a wider range of domains, from image recognition (computer vision) to fraud detection (finance). For instance, an ML model could classify images of cats and dogs, while an NLP system might summarize a news article. However, the two fields overlap: modern NLP systems like chatbots combine ML models (e.g., neural networks) with linguistic rules. Developers working in NLP need both ML fundamentals (e.g., training/evaluation pipelines) and domain-specific knowledge (e.g., syntax, semantics) to handle language-specific challenges effectively.