VOL 22: Explicit Difference Between Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are two hot talking points in technology right now, and they are frequently used interchangeably to describe intelligent software or systems.
However, the perception that they are the same can cause some confusion. So I thought it would be worthwhile to write a piece to explain the distinction. Before we get into the differences, let's take a quick look at artificial intelligence and machine learning.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
In simple terms, Artificial Intelligence involves using computers to do things that traditionally require human intelligence.
John McCarthy (revered as the father of AI) defines it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”.
In a broader concept, AI is allowing machines being able to carry out tasks in a way that we would consider “smart”. But the backbone of Artificial Intelligence is Machine Learning-ML
What is Machine Learning?
The term is self-explanatory, meaning "we want to make machines that can learn based on their knowledge and make decisions on their own."
Machine Learning is based on the idea that we should be able to simply provide machines with data and let them learn for themselves.
Two significant breakthroughs resulted in the emergence of machine learning, which is the vehicle driving the rapid AI development that we see today. Arthur Samuel (an American pioneer in the field of AI) was credited with one of these realizations in 1959. He said;
"Rather than teaching computers everything they need to know about the world and how to perform tasks, it may be possible to teach them to learn for themselves."
The second was the advent of the internet, which resulted in a massive increase in the amount of digital information generated, stored, and made available for analysis.
Once these innovations were in place, computer scientists realized that rather than teaching computers and machines how to do everything, it would be far more productive to program them to think like humans and then connect them to the internet to give them access to all of the world's information.
The Difference Between AI and ML
I'm sure you get the basic outline of their differences from the definitions, but to summarize;
AI solves tasks that require human intelligence, whereas machine learning (ML) solves specific tasks by learning from data and making predictions.
This means that all machine learning is AI, but not all AI is machine learning.
I hope this article has helped a few people understand the distinction between AI and ML.
Until next week, Happy Learning.
Enjoy the weekend.