Machine Learning

Have you ever watched a super funny cartoon on a tablet, and right when it ends, another one you love pops up next. How did it know you wanted to see that one. Or maybe you've seen your parents take a picture, and little squares magically appear around everyone's smiling faces. It feels like a secret, super-smart helper is paying attention, learning all the things that make you giggle and what you want to see. Well, I'm that secret helper. I'm the one doing all that learning and helping you have fun. Hello. My name is Machine Learning.

A long, long time ago, computers were a bit like sleepy robots. They could only do exactly what people told them to, step-by-step. They couldn't think for themselves or learn anything new. But then, a very smart man named Arthur Samuel had a wonderful idea. In the year 1959, he decided to teach a computer how to play the game of checkers. At first, the computer was not very good. It made silly moves and lost almost every game. But here is the amazing part, I was there helping it remember. After every single game, it learned from its mistakes. It remembered which moves led to winning and which ones made it lose. Soon, it became a checkers champion that could beat even the best human players. Arthur Samuel was so excited that he gave me my name, Machine Learning, because I helped a machine learn all by itself. Years later, in 1997, I got to help with an even trickier game, chess. A giant computer named Deep Blue was going to play against the best chess player in the entire world. I helped Deep Blue study thousands and thousands of chess games. It was like studying for the biggest test ever. And guess what. Deep Blue won. I showed everyone that I could help computers solve really big problems.

Playing games was just my first day at school. Today, I am still learning and growing, and I get to help people in so many important ways. I help doctors look at pictures from inside our bodies to find tiny clues that help people get healthy. I help scientists understand our planet by studying the weather, and I am even inside some cars, helping them learn to drive safely all by themselves. My favorite thing to do is learn, and every time you ask a smart speaker a question or pick a new movie to watch, you are helping me get smarter, too. Together, we can discover amazing new things and solve the world's biggest puzzles.