Glossary

Artificial Intelligence:

The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human
intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, translation between languages, and winning on Jeopardy!, as IBM’s Watson did in 2011. Or reminding you that today is your wife’s birthday.

Machine Translation:

The process by which computer software is used to convert text or speech in one language into another language while preserving the original meaning, such as the “click to translate” function on Facebook that can tell you what the “Gangnam style” lyrics really mean.

Deep Learning/Deep Neural Networks:

Deep learning software attempts to mimic the signal transformation that takes place in the deepest layers of neurons in the human brain. Instead of a single train of connected “neurons,” deep learning supercomputers are programmed with several wide but independent strata of processing units that can comb through massive amounts of data, making inferences about meaning, visual clues, and speech patterns that are then passed to the next higher level, and so on.