Snapchat's camera has to date mostly been associated with sending disappearing messages and goofy AR effects, like a virtual dancing hot dog. But what if it did things for you, like suggest ways to make your videos look and sound better? Or show you a similar shirt based on the one you're looking at? Starting Thursday, a feature called Scan is being upgraded and placed front and center in the app's camera, letting it identify a range of things in the real world, like clothes or dog breeds. Scan's prominent placement in Snapchat means that the company is slowly becoming not just a messaging app, but a visual search engine.

We've seen AI--more specifically, machine learning--do some creepy things with faces, as well as some groundbreaking things with viruses. But it can still be applied to random, fun stuff, like sorting LEGO. Or, as YouTuber Ryder Calm Down shows here, complimenting passing dogs. Because the world is full of really good pooches and they should know it! Gizmodo picked up on the above video, which the Canadian YouTuber and software engineer recently posted to his channel.

For many of us, machine learning seems pretty futuristic. Recently, though, it's been showing up more and more in our lives – whether it's a Google computer playing an amazing game of Go, or Inbox by Gmail creating auto replies. And while that's all exciting, some of us are still wondering what exactly machine learning is. Or why identifying a dog in a photo isn't as easy as it sounds. So we sat down with Maya Gupta, research scientist for machine learning at Google, to break it down.