Machine Learning algorithms are already playing a part in many every day technologies, including the speech recognition by Apple's Siri and Facebook's controversial facial recognition technology. They are also the key technology behind Google's self-driving cars. The major tech companies are all investing heavily in machine learning as part of their various AI drives. Google CEO Sundar Pichai says that, 'Machine learning is a core, transformative way by which we're re-thinking about how we're doing everything. We are thoughtfully applying it across all our products, be it search, ads, YouTube, or Play.

When the average person on the street hears the words Artificial Intelligence, they usually think sentient robots coming to take their job, and potentially their life. Which is understandable, partly because films like Terminator have conditioned us to think like that, and partly because it could well be true. Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk say it might happen, and they're very rarely wrong about anything. When people hear Machine Learning on the other hand, the tendency is not so much to grab a weapon and hide under the bed until the robot apocalypse comes. It's to express a healthy reverence for how such algorithms will benefit technology and make our lives easier.