Cassie Kozyrkov — Making Friends with Machine Learning

Google Chief Decision Scientist Cassie Kozyrkov TED Talk demystifies machine learning for non-technical audiences better than any other talk on this list. Her core framework: machine learning is not programming a computer to do a task; it is showing a computer examples of the task and letting it figure out the pattern. The difference matters enormously for understanding what AI can and cannot do. The analogy between training a dog (showing examples and rewarding correct behavior) and training a machine learning model is the most useful non-technical explanation of supervised learning available. Kozyrkov is an exceptionally clear communicator with genuine technical depth — she spent 10 years as a statistician before becoming a science communicator. After watching this talk, non-technical executives, journalists, and policymakers consistently report a qualitative improvement in their ability to evaluate AI claims.