Explainer: what actually is 'machine learning'?

Machine learning (ML) is teaching computers to learn patterns from data instead of being told every rule by hand.

A simple way to picture it:

• Traditional programming: you write the rules; the computer follows them.
• Machine learning: you show many examples; the computer learns the rules itself.

For instance, instead of coding every rule for "what a cat looks like," you show thousands of cat photos and the model learns the pattern. This powers translation, recommendations, and much more. What would you like explained next — neural networks, training data, or something else?