Locality-Sensitive Hashing for Finding Nearest Neighbors [Lecture Notes]

This lecture note describes a technique known as locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) that allows one to quickly find similar entries in large databases. This approach belongs to a novel and interesting class of algorithms that are known as randomized algorithms. A randomized algorithm does not guarantee an exact answer but instead provides a high probability guarantee that it will return the correct answer or one close to it. By investing additional computational effort, the probability can be pushed as high as desired.