"What's the difference between machine learning and statistics? Cynics, looking wryly at the explosion of commercial interest (and hype) in this area, equate data mining to statistics plus marketing. In truth, you should not look for a dividing line between machine learning and statistics, for there is a continuum—and a multidimensional one at that—of data analysis techniques. Some derive from the skills taught in standard statistics courses, and others are more closely associated with the kind of machine learning that has arisen out of computer science. Historically, the two sides have had rather different traditions. If forced to point to a single difference in emphasis, it might be that statisics has been more concerned with testing hypotheses, whereas machine learning has been more concerned with formulating the process of generalization as a search through possible hypotheses. But this is a gross oversimplification: statistics comprises far more than just hypothesis-testing, and many machine learning techniques do not involve any searching at all."
Witten and Frank (2000)
Statistics versus Machine Learning: A Significant Difference for Database Response Modeling
"The basic difference between statistics and machine learning (if there is any) is that statistics is more concerned with testing hypotheses whereas machine learning develops methods for examining the hypothesis space."
Abstract Joachim Selbig
"While the fundamental difference between machine learning and statistics exists in
the aspect of research methodology. That is, statisticians prefer theoretical soundness while machine learners
require both theoretical soundness and experimental effectiveness. Note that, at least in my own opinion, the
experimental aspect of the machine learning methodology owes much to the setup of the UCI Machine
Learning Repository [1]."
Zhou
What’s the difference between machine learning and statistics?
Statistics has been more concerned with testing hypotheses, whereas machine learning has been more concerned with formulating the process of generalization as a search through possible hypotheses.
Witten and Frank