Machine learning
Also called ML
Teaching a computer by showing it examples, so it learns the pattern itself instead of following rules written by hand.
A spam filter written by hand needs a rule for every trick, and scammers invent new tricks weekly. A machine-learning filter is shown millions of emails already marked "spam" or "not spam" and adjusts itself until it sorts them well. What comes out is a model: a large set of learned numbers that turns a new email into a verdict.
The strength of this approach is that it handles cases nobody wrote a rule for. The weakness is the same thing seen from the other side: the model learns whatever patterns its examples contain, including accidental and unfair ones, and nobody wrote them down to check.
For example
Nobody wrote a rule saying "a payment at 3 a.m. in another country after weeks of local shopping is suspicious". A fraud model learned that pattern from millions of past payments.
Put it to use
Where you'll meet machine learning in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, how to use it there, and the mix-up most people make.
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