Machine learning has been defined in many ways by different researchers. The following are definitions from some of the most prominent researchers in the field:
Machine learning is programming computers to optimize a performance criterion using example data or past experience.
—Ethem Alpaydin1
The goal of machine learning is to develop methods that can automatically detect patterns in data, and then to use the uncovered patterns to predict future data or other outcomes of interest.
—Kevin P. Murphy2
The field of pattern recognition is concerned with ...
