Machine Learning
Computer systems that learn patterns from data and improve their performance without being explicitly programmed for each task.
A subset of artificial intelligence where computer systems identify patterns in data and make predictions or decisions by learning from examples, rather than following pre-written rules. The system improves its accuracy as it processes more data. Applications range from email spam filters to image recognition and recommendation systems.
What this means in real life
A streaming service learns your taste in movies by tracking which ones you watch and rate highly, then recommends similar films you haven't seen yet—without anyone manually coding rules about what you like.
What it isn’t
It is not artificial general intelligence or conscious AI. Machine learning systems excel at specific, narrow tasks (like recognizing faces) but cannot reason broadly or understand context the way humans do.
Commonly misused online
Often conflated with 'AI' as a whole; people use 'machine learning' to mean any smart algorithm, when technically it refers only to systems that learn from data rather than follow fixed rules.