How to tell if you can trust an AI

Machine learning is a vibrant, fast-growing branch of artificial intelligence. It aims to make reliable decisions with real-world data, without needing to be manually programmed by a human. The algorithms involved can be trained for specific tasks by analysing large amounts of data with some basic rules, and picking out any recurring patterns. From this analysis, they can build models that help them to identify similar patterns in new, unfamiliar data. Whether used in voice recognition, or to identify important features in medical images -- like telling skin cancer from a benign mole -- machine learning is already being rolled out in many real-world applications, and its influence on our everyday lives is only set to grow in the coming years. When trained, the models may pick up on different patterns than those a human would find important or relevant.