So you think machine learning is boring?

If you say the words 'machine learning' to people they either look confused or bored. Since the promise of Artificial Intelligence evaporated in the 1970s, machine intelligence seems to be one of those things that's a perpetual 20 years away.

There's a lot happening in machine learning: the next ten years should be very exciting

But computer industry insiders know that many forms of machine learning are at work all the time. The most common and visible are recommendation systems like the one on Amazon.com that comes up with suggestions for other books you might like. But even that doesn't express the true power of state of the art algorithms.

But a helicopter doing backflips and a walking robot do.

Here's AnyBots walking robot Dexter taking his first steps. Dexter is unusual in that unlike other walking robots he's essentially unstable (just like a human). He needs to constantly adjust his 'muscles' to stay upright. And he wasn't programmed to walk like that, he was programmed to learn to stay upright and walk.



And here's the Stanford University Autonomous Helicopter doing some stomach churning maneuvers. The helicopter is flying itself and being instructed to perform tricks for the camera. It learned to perform these tricks by learning to emulate the trajectory of a real helicopter flown by a human.



And if you've seen Lord of the Rings or Troy, or played Grand Theft Auto IV then you've seen a different sort of machine learning in action. Human motion in stunts in the films, and by characters in the game, are driven by algorithms that were created via computer evolution.



There's a lot happening in machine learning: the next ten years should be very exciting.

John.