When you think about artificial intelligence, the first thing that probably comes to mind is The Terminator—a living robot that can do everything a human can, but faster, better, and smarter.
I’m not going to dive into the medieval history of how we went from punch cards to talking computers or how we can now access the entire world from a tiny screen. Instead, I want to focus on one simple idea.
Let’s say you want a sandwich. You tell your mom, “Make me a sandwich,” and—without asking how—she makes it. Why? Because she already knows what a sandwich is, how to make it, and what you mean.
Now imagine telling a computer the same thing. Unlike your mom, it doesn’t inherently know what a sandwich is, what ingredients are involved, or even what “make” means—unless you give it very specific, structured instructions. That’s what programming is: telling a machine what to do, step by step, in a language it understands.
But here’s the twist: What if you didn’t need to be a programmer? What if the computer could understand you just like your mom does?
That’s where Natural Language Processing (NLP) comes in. It’s the part of AI that enables machines to understand and process human language. It allows even a “non-techie” to talk to machines and get meaningful responses—whether that’s asking Siri for the weather or using ChatGPT to write a blog post.
So yes, you can think of the Terminator again—a robot that walks, talks, and understands commands. But if it doesn’t understand your language, you’d have to explain everything in code, which could take ages (maybe even centuries).
The fact that we’ve come this far didn’t happen overnight—it took decades of research and innovation.
So here I am, starting my** Natural Language Processing** series.
Now it’s your turn:
What’s your perspective on AI? How do you see the future of machines that can understand us? Drop your thoughts below!
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