What is Machine Learning - ELI5 - ParallelDots

I had a recent meeting with a person who was introduced to Machine Learning for the first time. It was interesting to know how someone totally new to the field would interpret what Machine Learning would be. He could instantly connect the term learning with what most Data Scientists would call Reinforcement Learning. A machine could observe phenomena and refine itself by itself is what he thought. It is weird that the one branch of Artificial Intelligence a layman could best connect to is the one least studied.