How Machines are Learning for Modern Agriculture

Arthur Samuel, an eccentric computer engineer at Stanford University, took part in what could be considered the most important game of checkers ever played. Arthur challenged the then reigning Connecticut state champion to match wits with a computer he programmed to play checkers.a Surprisingly enough, this event is not an artifact of recent history; the fateful game took place in 1961. Decades prior to the personal computer revolution, Professor Samuel built a working prototype capable of what we now call, "machine learning." Rather than programming the 500 quintillion b potential scenarios on a checkerboard, Arthur instructed the computer to react based on games it had played in the past.