Loss functions are metrics of how much different the predictions from a model are to the real values that it should predict.
You’d think that a regular difference () would be enough, but the differences can compensate each other, giving you a wrong value.
Mean Squared Error (MSE)
Generally preferred. Useful if the target variable has a gaussian distribution.
np.mean((y - y_hat) ** 2)Mean Squared Logarithmic Error (MLE)
The concept is the same as MSE but using logarithms. Usually used when the target variable has a spread over absolute values (this is, large differences) and MSE might be too unforgiving.
MSLE = & \frac{1}{n} \sum^n\left( \log\left(Y + 1\right) - \log\left(\hat{Y} + 1\right) \right) ^2 \\ = & \frac{1}{n} \sum^n \log\left(\frac{Y + 1}{\hat{Y} + 1}\right)^2 \end{aligned}$$ ```python np.mean((np.log(y + 1) - np.log(y_hat + 1)) ** 2) ```