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The Learning Machine A plain-language guide to artificial intelligence

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Basics What AI is History How it learns Neural networks

In the world Where it is used Risks and ethics Learn it

Reference Glossary Contact

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What is this about

Message Quote the page and the sentence if you are reporting an error.

Corrections are welcome

Several pages state things that are contested or that will date. If you find something wrong, say which page and which sentence and it will be fixed or footnoted.

Using this with students

The pages are free to use in teaching. The glossary and the timeline work well as handouts, and the worked example on the learning page can be redone in a spreadsheet in about ten minutes.

What will not be answered

Requests to predict market movements, to write coursework, or to say definitively when general intelligence arrives. Nobody knows the last one.

The Learning Machine

Ten pages, written for people who keep reading about AI and want the ground underneath it. Nothing here is behind a login, and no database is involved — every page reads from a PHP array.

Corrections and questions: hello@learningmachine.example

All pages

Start here
What AI is
History
How it learns
Neural networks
Where it is used
Risks and ethics
Learn it
Glossary
Contact

About the numbers

Dates and milestones are drawn from the published record. Where a claim is contested — how close general intelligence is, how many jobs shift — the page says so rather than picking a side.

© 2026 The Learning Machine. Written for learners, teachers and the merely curious.

Built with PHP 8.4 and no database.