— From The Master Algorithm – How the Quest for the ultimate learning machine will remake our world by Pedro Domingos P. 10
The Industrial Revolution automated manual work and the Information Revolution did the same for mental work, but machine learning automates automation itself. Without it, programmers become the bottleneck holding up progress. With it, the pace of progress picks up. If you’re a lazy and not-too-bright computer scientist, machine learning is the ideal occupation, because learning algorithms do all the work but let you take all the credit. On the other hand, learning algorithms could put us out of our jobs, which would only be poetic justice.
By taking automation to new heights, the machine-learning revolution will cause extensive economic and social changes, just as the Internet, the personal computer, the automobile, and the steam engine did in their time. One area where these changes are already apparent is business.”