Describe overfitting and L1/L2 regularization
Company: Amazon
Role: Machine Learning Engineer
Category: Machine Learning
Difficulty: easy
Interview Round: Technical Screen
Define **overfitting** in machine learning and explain why it is harmful.
Then describe **L1** and **L2 regularization**:
- How each one modifies the loss function.
- The qualitative effect of each (e.g., sparsity, weight shrinkage).
- How they help mitigate overfitting and when you might prefer one over the other.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates understanding of model generalization and regularization techniques by probing knowledge of overfitting and L1/L2 regularization and their effects on model parameters.
