AN INTRODUCTION TO MACHINE LEARNING

“Machine learning has come of age. And just in case you might think this is a mere platitude, let me clarify.
The dream that machines would one day be able to learn is as old as computers themselves, perhaps older still. For a long time, however, it remained just that: a dream. True, Rosenblatt’s perceptron did trigger a wave of activity, but in retrospect, the excitement has to be deemed short-lived. As for the attempts that followed, these fared even worse; barely noticed, often ignored, they never made a breakthrough – no software companies, no major follow-up research, and not much support from funding agencies. Machine learning remained an underdog, condemned to live in the shadow of more successful disciplines. The grand ambition lay dormant.”

Miroslav Kubat