You are standing on the side of a steep mountain. You need to descend to the base of the mountain as quickly as possible. Remarkably, this scenario illustrates a central concept in machine learning. But let's get back to the mountain. I'd imagine that the first thing you would do, almost intuitively, would be to [...]

What is machine learning? I could bore you with textbook definitions. Instead, let me use a familiar example. A few days ago, I was teaching a child how to count. This is what transpired: Child:   1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 8... Me:   Stop. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is correct, but what comes after [...]