Why is machine learning so hard to explain? Making it clear can help with stakeholder buy-in

It's hard to get stakeholders to buy into technology they don't understand. In the case of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), very few people actually get it, leaving an explainability gap for data scientists and businesses. Three years ago, the MIT Technology Review published an article about AI titled, "The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI." "No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That could be a problem," Will Knight wrote. "Last year, a strange self-driving car was released onto the quiet roads of Monmouth County, New Jersey… . The car didn't follow a single instruction provided by an engineer or programmer. Instead, it relied entirely on an algorithm that had taught itself to drive by watching a human do it. "Getting a car to drive this way was an impressive feat.