ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Maximum a posteriori

Imagine you are playing a guessing game with your friends, and they hid a toy somewhere in the room. You don't know where the toy is, but you want to make the best guess possible to find it quickly.

Maximum a posteriori is like a strategy you can use to make your guess based on some information you have. Specifically, it involves looking at what you think is the most likely location of the toy based on how often similar things are found in similar places. This is called the "posterior probability."

For example, if you know that your friends usually hide toys under the couch, there is a high posterior probability that the toy is under the couch. Similarly, if you know that they usually hide toys in the closet, there is a high posterior probability that the toy is in the closet.

Maximum a posteriori is like choosing the option with the highest posterior probability. So, if you think the toy is most likely under the couch, you guess that it is under the couch.

Overall, maximum a posteriori is a way to use past experience and data to make educated guesses about the present or future. It can be useful in many different fields, like science, engineering, and statistics.