Artificial Intelligence: What It Is and How It Really Works

It all started out as science fiction: machines that can talk, machines that can think, machines that can feel. Although that last bit may be impossible without sparking an entire world of debate regarding the existence of consciousness, scientists have certainly been making strides with the first two. Over the years, we have been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. But how do we differentiate between these three rather abstruse terms, and how are they related to one another? Artificial intelligence (AI) is the general field that covers everything that has anything to do with imbuing machines with "intelligence," with the goal of emulating a human being's unique reasoning faculties.