Just how does machine learning work? You’ve probably read a primer or two on the subject, but often the best way to understand a thing is to try it out for yourself. With that in mind, check out this little in-browser experiment from Google named Teachable Machine. It’s a perfect two-minute summary of what a lot of modern AI can — and more importantly can’t — do.

Teachable Machine lets you use your webcam to train an extremely basic AI program. Just hit the “train green/purple/orange” buttons, and the machine will record whatever it can see through your webcam. Once it’s “learned” enough, it’ll output whatever you like (a GIF or a sound effect or some speech) when it sees the object or activity you trained it with. I taught to recognize…

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