Machine learning
Definition
A way of building software that learns patterns from examples instead of following rules written by hand.
In plain English
In ordinary programming, a person writes the rules. In machine learning, a person provides examples and the computer works out the rules itself, stored as numbers inside a model.
Machine learning is one part of artificial intelligence. Most of today’s AI products, from photo search to chatbots, are built with it.
Example
Instead of writing rules for every kind of spam, you show a program thousands of emails labeled “spam” or “not spam,” and it learns to tell them apart.
Draft, not yet reviewed by a person · Updated Nov 2026