Demystifying Machine Learning - RepriseDigital.com

Before we jump into the definition of machine learning we first have to clarify its context in relation to a term much more common in popular culture today, artificial intelligence (AI). AI was a term first coined in 1956 by John McCarthy at Dartmouth College at a conference where the topic was first discussed. Put simply, artificial intelligence is the ability of a machine to perform tasks that are characteristic of human intelligence. With that definition in mind, how does a machine go about performing these kinds of tasks, which are so closely associated with human intelligence; planning, object and sound recognition, language understanding, problem solving and learning? Well, one of the ways a machine can go about doing this is through machine learning. Machine learning can be defined as the field of computer science that deals with algorithms that learn from, and make predictions on, data without needing to be explicitly programmed.