Young people today must understand this new technology and use that knowledge as they begin to plan their future and think about what they want to do in their lives. Humans will confront novel opportunities and unfamiliar challenges in this coming era. The whole concept of what constitutes work is changing. What lies ahead could be the golden age of humanity. Or, as some have warned, humans could fail disastrously if they do not manage these new capabilities wisely. We are quite literally at the beginning of a journey and have no idea where we will end up. Today's youth will lead us there.

MACHINES THAT LEARN introduces the core issues, focusing on visual understanding with a spirit of excitement. The book sets the stage without getting lost in the details of the technology. Now is the time to grow knowledge of this burgeoning technology and prepare tomorrow's leaders to successfully use these new tools to improve the quality of life for everyone.

"For more than 250 years the fundamental drivers of economic growth have been technological innovations. The most important of these are what economists call general-purpose technologies - a category that includes the steam engine, electricity, and the internal combustion engine. The most important general-purpose technology of our era is artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning." Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, 2018