As a player in the field of Information Technology and as one of the influencers of digital transformation which is made possible largely by two of the most appreciated technologies in recent times - Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), I have had to respond to floods of questions as above from friends, acquaintances, clients, and even from fellow colleagues and partners, uncountable times. So I have decided to put out here at least my basic understanding of these two concepts.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are related but distinct concepts in the field of computer science. AI is the broad field of developing computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as reasoning, perception, learning, and natural language processing. On the other hand, ML is a subset of AI that involves developing algorithms and statistical models that enable computer systems to learn and improve their performance on specific tasks over time.

In essence, ML is a technique that enables AI systems to learn from data, recognize patterns, and make predictions or decisions based on that data. For example, a machine learning algorithm can be trained to identify images of cats by being fed a large dataset of cat images and learning the distinguishing features that separate cats from other objects. This trained algorithm can then be used by an AI system to automatically identify cats in new images.

Therefore, AI and ML are closely related in that ML provides a crucial component of AI systems, enabling them to learn and improve their performance on specific tasks. Without ML, AI systems would have to be manually programmed to perform specific tasks, which would be time-consuming and limit their flexibility.

To summarize, AI is the broader field of developing intelligent computer systems, while ML is a specific technique that enables these systems to learn from data and improve their performance on specific tasks.

Distinct components of AI and ML

As earlier stated, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are closely related, but they are distinct concepts with their own components. Here are the distinct components of AI and ML:

Components of Artificial Intelligence

Knowledge Representation: It is a way of representing the knowledge or information that an AI system uses to reason, make decisions or solve problems.

Reasoning: It is the process of using knowledge to draw conclusions or solve problems. AI systems use various forms of reasoning, such as deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and abductive reasoning.

Planning: It is the process of developing a sequence of actions to achieve a specific goal. AI systems use planning algorithms to generate plans that achieve a specific goal.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): It is the ability of an AI system to understand and generate human language. NLP involves speech recognition, language translation, and sentiment analysis tasks.

Perception: It is the ability of an AI system to perceive and understand the environment using sensors and other inputs. Perception tasks include object recognition, image and video processing, and speech recognition.

Components of Machine Learning

Data Collection: It is the process of collecting data from various sources. The quality and quantity of data collected can significantly affect the performance of a Machine Learning model.

Feature Extraction: It is the process of selecting and transforming relevant data into a set of features that can be used by the machine learning algorithm.

Model Training: It is the process of using a machine learning algorithm to learn from the data and adjust its parameters to minimize the prediction error.

Model Evaluation: It is the process of evaluating the performance of a machine learning model on a test dataset to estimate its accuracy and generalization capabilities.

Prediction: It is the ability of a trained machine learning model to make predictions on new data based on the patterns it has learned from the training data.

In summary, AI and ML are distinct concepts with their own components, but they are closely related as ML provides a crucial component of AI systems, enabling them to learn and improve their performance on specific tasks.

(Kindly note that this information is not exhaustive as objective comments and additions are welcome in the comments section).