Chris Meserole, Brookings
The core insight of machine learning is that much of what we recognize as intelligence hinges on probability rather than reason or logic. Recognizing someone, planning a trip, plotting a strategy—each of these tasks demonstrate intelligence. But rather than hinging primarily on our ability to reason abstractly or think grand thoughts, they depend first and foremost on our ability to accurately assess how likely something is. We just don’t always realize that that’s what we’re doing. Back in the 1950s, though, McCarthy and his colleagues did realize it. And they understood something else too: Computers should be very good at computing probabilities.
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