Rise of the Machines

Illustration of how a virtual interviewer sees a human. Although most would agree that the average person is smarter than the average cat, comparing humans and machines is not as straightforward. A computer may not excel at abstract reasoning, but it can process vast amounts of data in the blink of an eye. In recent years, researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) have used this computational firepower on the scads of data accumulating online, in academic research, in financial records, and in virtually all walks of life. The algorithms they develop help machines learn from data and apply that knowledge in new situations, much like humans do.