So we’ve talked a lot in this series about how computers fetch and display data, but how do they make decisions on this data? From spam filters and self-driving cars, to cutting edge medical diagnosis and real-time language translation, there has been an increasing need for our computers to learn from data and apply that knowledge to make predictions and decisions. This is the heart of machine learning which sits inside the more ambitious goal of artificial intelligence. We may be a long way from self-aware computers that think just like us, but with advancements in deep learning and artificial neural networks our computers are becoming more powerful than ever.

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So we ended last episode with programming at the hardware level with things like plugboards and huge panels of switches, but what was really needed was a more versatile way to program computers – software! For much of this series we’ve been talking about machine code, or the 1’s and 0’s our computers read to perform operations, but giving our computers instructions in 1’s and 0’s is incredibly inefficient, and a “higher-level” language was needed. This led to the development of assembly code and assemblers that allow us to use operands and mnemonics to more easily write programs, but assembly language is still tied to underlying hardware. So by 1952 Navy officer Grace Hopper had helped created the first high-level programming language A-0 and compiler to translate that code to our machines. This would eventually lead to IBM’s Fortran and then a golden age of computing languages over the coming decades. Most importantly, these new languages utilized new abstractions to make programming easier and more powerful giving more and more people the ability to create new and amazing things.

Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios

Want to know more about Carrie Anne?
https://about.me/carrieannephilbin

The Latest from PBS Digital Studios: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1mtdjDVOoOqJzeaJAV15Tq0tZ1vKj7ZV

Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?
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Support Crash Course on Patreon: http://patreon.com/crashcourse

CC Kids: http://www.youtube.com/crashcoursekids

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