ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Incremental decision tree

Okay, so imagine you're playing a game where you have to figure out which object your friend is thinking of. You start by asking a big question like, "Is it an animal?" and your friend says yes. So now you know it's an animal. But there are lots of different animals, so you have to ask more questions to narrow it down.

An incremental decision tree works kind of like that game. It's a way for a computer to make decisions based on a big question (like "is it an animal?") and then ask smaller questions (like "is it furry?") to figure out the answer.

The decision tree starts with a big question at the top, and then it branches out into smaller questions below. Each branch represents a different possible answer, and the computer follows the branches until it finds the right answer.

But here's the cool part: with an incremental decision tree, you don't have to ask all the questions at once. You can start by asking the big question ("is it an animal?") and then ask more questions later based on the answer you get. So if your friend said it was an animal, you might ask, "Is it furry?" If they say yes, you might then ask, "Does it have four legs?" and so on.

This is helpful because sometimes you don't know all the questions you need to ask at the beginning. By asking questions one at a time, you can adapt and change your strategy as you go.

So that's what an incremental decision tree is: a way for computers to make decisions like a game of 20 questions, but with the ability to ask more questions as they go along.