Google's vision of machine-learning: all software engineering to use it, will change humanity

A long-form Backchannel post by Steven Levy gives a fascinating insight into Google's vision of the future of machine-learning. While it's currently a specialist field, Google believes that one day it will be used by all software engineers no matter what the field, and that it will'change humanity.' It invites just 18 software engineers a year to join its Machine Learning Ninja Program, where they work alongside expert mentors for six months before going back to apply the approach to their own work. But Google's machine-learning leader Jeff Dean estimates that around 10% of its 25,000 developers are proficient in the field, and he'd like that number to be 100%. What's notable is that all involved, from those in the Ninja program to the company's key experts in the field, see machine-learning as something transformative … For many years, machine learning was considered a specialty, limited to an elite few.