The world of computing, from chips to software to systems, is going to change dramatically in coming years as a result of the spread of machine learning. We may still refer to these computers as "Universal Turing Machines," as we have for eighty years or more. But in practice they will be different from the way they have been built and used up to now. Such a change is of interest both to anyone who cares about what computers do, and to anyone who's interested in machine learning in all its forms.

The world of computing, from chips to software to systems, is going to change dramatically in coming years as a result of the spread of machine learning. We may still refer to these computers as "Universal Turing Machines," as we have for eighty years or more. But in practice they will be different from the way they have been built and used up to now. Such a change is of interest both to anyone who cares about what computers do, and to anyone who's interested in machine learning in all its forms. In February, Facebook's head of A.I. research, Yann LeCun, gave a talk at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, one of the longest running computer chip conferences in the world.