Many people are unsure about exactly what machine learning is. But the reality is that it is already part of everyday life.
A form of artificial intelligence, it allows computers to learn from examples rather than having to follow step-by-step instructions.
The Royal Society believes it will have an increasing impact on people’s lives and is calling for more research, to ensure the UK makes the most of opportunities.
Machine learning is already powering systems from the seemingly mundane to the life-changing.
I – Word Understanding
Mundane – ordinary day-to-day things
II – Have Your Say
Here are a few examples of machine learning present in our daily lives. How useful are they to you?
1. On your phone – Using spoken commands (Siri, Google Assistant) to ask your phone to carry out a search, or make a call, relies on technology supported by machine learning.
2. In you shopping basket – Many of us are familiar with shopping recommendations – think of the supermarket that reminds you to add cheese to your online shop, or the way Amazon suggests books it thinks you might like.
3. On your TV – Similar systems are used to recommend films or TV shows on streaming services like Netflix.
4. In your email – Machine learning can also be used to distinguish between different categories of objects or items.
5. On your social media – The image recognition systems that Facebook – and other social media – uses to automatically tag photos is based on machine learning.
610 Eight ways intelligent machines are already in your life
