What Is Data Annotation: The Basics
Knowledge&Technology

What Is Data Annotation: The Basics

This article provides the definition of data annotation, types of data annotations, the benefits of using AI for data annotation, and discusses automatic and manual data annotation.
Alan Kilich
6 minutes

What Is Data Annotation: The Basics

Every machine learning and deep learning algorithm relies heavily on data, and the engine propels these very advanced algorithms to perform at the cutting edge. However, to construct reliable AI models, it is necessary to supply the algorithms with well-structured and well-labeled data.

Data annotation is a valuable tool in this context.

For machine learning algorithms to learn how to complete specific tasks, you must annotate the data they use for training.

In other words, annotating data is simple but not always easy. Fortunately, we're about to give you a hand by explaining all you need to know, including several tips and tricks that will shave significant amounts of time off your workload.

These are the topics we will go through in this blog article:

  • The definition of data annotation.
  • Types of data annotations
  • Annotating data automatically vs. manually
  • The benefits of using AI for data annotation

What is Data Annotation?

A lot of training data is needed to make an AI or Machine Learning model that acts like a human. A model must be trained to comprehend specific information to make decisions and take action.

Data annotating is the process of classifying and labeling data for AI applications. Training data must be correctly categorized and annotated for a specific use case. Companies can build and improve AI systems with high-quality data annotated by humans.

Supervised ML models are trained and learn using properly labeled data to address challenges like:

Classification is the process of sorting test data into subcategories. Classification problems include, but are not limited to this, determining the presence or absence of a disease in a patient and placing their health records into the appropriate "disease" or "no disease" categories.

Using a statistical method called regression, one can determine if there is a connection between two data sets. For instance, a regression problem could be used to estimate the impact of advertising spending on product sales.

Voice recognition, product suggestions, appropriate search engine results, voice recognition, computer vision,  chatbots, and other improvements to the consumer experience are the final result. Text, sound, still images, and moving visuals are the most common forms of data.

Different Types of Data Annotation

Let's dive a bit deeper into different types of data annotation.

Image Annotation

Annotating images is essential for many uses, such as those involving computer vision, robotic vision, facial recognition, and other solutions that use machine learning to decipher images. 

When building training datasets for learning systems, image annotation is often used. For use in training, images need to have information added to them, such as IDs, captions, or keywords.

There are many applications that necessitate large amounts of annotated photos, such as computer vision systems used by self-driving vehicles, machines that select and sort produce, and healthcare applications that automatically diagnose medical issues. Annotating images is an excellent way to train these algorithms, leading to greater precision and accuracy.

Differentiating between object classes requires drawing bounding boxes for detection and segmentation masks for semantic and instance segmentation.

The number of labels on an image can increase depending on the usage scenario. In its most basic form, image annotation can be broken down into two categories:

Image Classification

Machines that have been trained on annotated images can quickly and accurately identify the contents of an image by comparing it to a set of labels.

Object Recognition & Object Detection 

It is an improved version of image categorization and accurately describes the quantities and relative placements of things shown in the picture. Unlike image classification, which classifies a complete picture, object recognition names individual objects. Image classification, for instance, entails assigning a "day" or "night" label to an image. When an image is processed with object recognition, multiple objects, such as a bike, tree, or table, are categorized separately.

Suppose you need AI-powered object detection and object recognition solution. In that case, Cameralyze is a no-code visual intelligence platform capable of recognizing and tagging multiple objects in any given picture, video, or live stream, as well as identifying your visual data and tracking moving items in a live video feed in real-time. Start to use it for free!

If you are interested in object detection and object recognition, we recommend the following blog articles:

Text Annotation

According to the 2020 State of AI and Machine Learning report, the text is the most widely used data type, with 70% of businesses depending on it. 

Data annotation is also essential for Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. If you are interested, we recommend you read our article, which explains the basics of NLP, its techniques and methods, NLP applications, and use cases in 2022.

Text annotation means adding relevant information about the language data by adding labels or metadata. Several annotations, such as emotion, intent, and even queries, can be applied to texts. 

Sentiment Annotation

Sentiment analysis relies on high-quality training data to accurately evaluate people's feelings, thoughts, and views. Human annotators are frequently used to gather this information since they can evaluate mood and filter content across all web platforms, including social media and e-commerce sites. Then they can tag and report on keywords that are profane, sensitive, or neologism.

Intent Annotation

Due to the rise in popularity of HMIs, it is essential that computers can comprehend not only human speech but also the underlying intentions of their human operators. It is possible to classify requests, commands, bookings, suggestions, and confirmations into their respective categories using multi-intent data collection and classification.

Semantic Annotation

Semantic annotation, in this way, can improve a machine learning system in its attempt to understand how to recognize and adequately categorize abnormalities.

Two benefits of semantic annotation are improved product listings and easier consumer discovery, and this increases the likelihood that site visitors will make a purchase. Semantic annotation services help in the training of an algorithm to recognize the many components inside product titles and search queries, thus increasing search relevancy.

Named Entity Annotation

Training data for Named Entity Recognition (NER) systems must be extensive and human-annotated. The main objective of named entity recognition (NER) is to identify and categorize specific words or phrases inside a text.

You can use it to look up things like people's names, places, etc., depending on the meaning of a set of words. Information extraction, classification, and categorization are all made more accessible by NER.

Audio Annotation

Audio annotation entails not only the time-stamping and transcription of speech data but also the identification of linguistic features such as language, dialect, and speaker demographics. 

Tagging aggressive speech signs and non-speech sounds like glass breaking for use in security and emergency hotline technology applications is just one example of the specialized approaches needed for the wide variety of possible use cases.

Video Annotation

Video annotation is similar to annotating images in that it entails labeling segments of the video in order to detect and identify specific objects frame by frame. A crucial component of practical machine learning is data that humans have manually annotated. Computers can't compare to humans when it comes to handling nuance, nuanced meaning, and ambiguity.

By way of example, several individuals' opinions are required to reach an agreement on whether or not a search engine result is relevant. Frame-by-frame video annotation employs the same methods as image annotation, such as bounding boxes or semantic segmentation. The approach is crucial for localization and object tracking, two common computer vision tasks.

Humans are needed to manually identify and annotate data for use in training a computer vision or pattern recognition system, such as highlighting every pixel in a picture that contains trees or traffic signs. Machines can be taught to make these connections during testing and production with the help of this structured data.

Annotating Data Automatically vs. Manually

Human annotators have a tendency to fail and make more mistakes as the day progresses due to fatigue and lack of focus. Data annotation is a time-consuming and resource-intensive procedure that requires the full attention of knowledgeable workers.

This is why cutting-edge ML groups are relying on machine-generated labels for their data.

Here's how it works: after an annotation task has been defined, a trained machine learning model can be applied to an otherwise unlabeled data set. Labels for the new, unseen data set can then be predicted by the model. In the event that the model makes an incorrect labeling decision, however, humans can step in, examine, and rectify the mislabeled data. Once the errors have been fixed and the data has been verified, the labeling model can be trained again.

While automated data labeling can save significant time and resources, its accuracy is not always guaranteed. However, human annotation is typically more accurate, although being significantly more expensive.

What Are The Benefits Of Using AI For Annotation?

Machine learning relied mainly on human annotation for a long time. Businesses often outsource this process to third-party companies or employ in-house developed text annotation tools. To help their clients train their systems to mimic human thought, these firms would generate the requisite datasets.

In image annotation projects, human-annotated data can be generated manually and can include a wide variety of labels, such as those describing the image's color, texture, and overall appearance. Quantities of data are supplied to teach machine learning models how to reason like humans.

Human accuracy ensures high-quality results when manually labeling data; however, this method is labor-intensive, expensive, and time-consuming. There is a need for assistance with picture and video annotation, and this is where AI-assisted video annotation solutions can help.

Check our articles to learn more about Data and Computer Vision Technologies:

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