While many machine learning algorithms have been around for a long time, the ability to automatically apply complex mathematical calculations to big data – over and over, faster and faster – is a recent development. It’s a science that’s not new – but one that has gained fresh momentum. They learn from previous computations to produce reliable, repeatable decisions and results.
It was born from pattern recognition and the theory that computers can learn without being programmed to perform specific tasks researchers interested in artificial intelligence wanted to see if computers could learn from data. The iterative aspect of machine learning is important because as models are exposed to new data, they are able to independently adapt. Because of new computing technologies, machine learning today is not like machine learning of the past.
