They’re shown examples of things and given labels to associate with what they’re shown. Show a computer (or a child) a picture of a cat, say that’s what a cat looks like, and the algorithm ...

The algorithm will expand to all languages in which Google offers Search, but there is no set timeline, yet, said Google’s Danny Sullivan.

An algorithm is a set of procedures. In machine learning, an algorithm learns to identify patterns after being trained on a large set of examples – the training data.

One fact about machine learning and data algorithms that may surprise business users is that there aren’t that many of them.

So are humans and algorithms mutually exclusive then? Not necessarily! Consider that for many of us, the most familiar example of a machine-learning algorithm is probably the Facebook news feed.

For example, algorithms used in facial recognition technology have in the past shown higher identification rates for men than for women, and for individuals of non-white origin than for whites.