Artificial Intelligence vs. Machine Learning: The Costs of Innovation

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been making serious technical progress over the last several years, but not in the political sense. Tech giants like Microsoft and Google, and online retailers like Amazon, have found new ways to accelerate their products using AI-driven algorithms. AI isn't exactly the correct term, however -- at least not in the sense that general consumers know it, in regard to machines like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Skynet in the Terminator movies. There's a difference between AI and Machine Learning, but it's such a new concept for the zeitgeist, the two are easily confused. AI is a broad term encompassing technology that employs advanced computer intelligence, but it's Machine Learning (ML) that really gives computers that human-like intellect seen in science fiction.