What is machine learning?

The media today indicate that machine learning is likely to fundamentally transform our lives as we know it. Some high-profile examples of areas that will most likely benefit from machine learning include sales and marketing, maintenance event planning, and predetermining health risks (as well as many others as well). Machine learning provides insights based on patterns discovered or observed in machine data.

So, what is an understandable definition (there are many definitions) of machine learning? With a little online searching, one will discover that machine learning is often described as follows:

• A subfield of the computer science field
• Evolving out of the study of pattern recognition
• A field of study or focus giving computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed
• A specific method for implementing AI, focused on statistical/probabilistic techniques and evolutionary techniques
• Allows software to become more accurate in predicting without being explicitly...