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Boundaries & Margins

k-NN: Learning by Looking Around

7 min+65 XPStep 1/10

The lazy learner

k-nearest neighbors doesn't learn anything at training time — it just memorizes the dataset. To classify a new point, it finds the k closest training examples and takes a majority vote.

The decision boundary isn't drawn anywhere; it emerges from the neighborhoods. k = 1 gives jagged borders that trace every training point. Larger k smooths the vote into calmer shapes.

analogy

k-NN is asking the neighbors what neighborhood you're in. Ask one and you inherit their quirks; ask fifteen and you get the consensus of the street.