How to translate machine learning?

Question

Machine learning is a roughly method where a machine learns to perform a certain task by learning on its own. The machine gains experience and can solve a very specific problem intuitively. It is not being educated by a teacher (other than its own experience) nor can it (unfortunately) communicate why it does what it does.

What would be a good Latin translation of "machine learning"? The key aspect is choosing a suitable concept of learning to match what machine learning is all about. For example, educatio, studium, and eruditio sound like a wrong kind of learning, but perhaps cognitio, apprehensio, or discentia might work.

The next step is bringing the machine into the picture. It is probably easiest to understand if it is close to the English choice, for example cognitio machinalis. Judging by the translations offered by Wikipedia, the word "machine" is included in most languages, and the most nontrivial part is a correct kind of learning. The Romance languages are somewhat exceptional with "apprendimento automatico", "apprentissage automatique", and similar.

How would you translate "machine learning" in Latin and why? There are a couple of important aspects of the translation: understandability (at the cost of elegance if needed) and a descriptive choice of "learning".

This question was inspired by a conference I am currently attending.

Answer 1

First, let's just note that the English phrase "machine learning" does not unambiguously communicate its meaning. If you had no context for it, you wouldn't know if it meant using a machine to learn, or learning about machines, or a machine doing the learning, etc. So, you've essentially asked for a translation that's more precise than the original phrase.

In fact, even the field of machine learning trades on a few different meanings. Sometimes it refers more to the efforts of researchers trying to teach machines to learn ("Machine learning is a booming research specialty"), sometimes it denotes the desired result, machines that are self-learning ("AlphaZero is a cutting-edge example of machine learning").

I think the best I can do without getting either extremely creative and inventing new words or making really unwieldy Latin is to offer you a way to say that a machine is self-taught. There is rare precedent for a Latin transliteration of a Greek term: autodidactus for αυτοδιδακτος. But it is available in Latin only as an adjective, so far as I am aware.

So:

machina autodidacta (self-taught machine)

ars machinae autodidactae (the field of study concerning self-teaching machines)

But if you're comfortable creating a new Latin verb, we have more options. Let's take "docere", the basic verb for teaching, and add our -auto prefix: autodocere, to teach one's self. I think the meaning will be clear to Latinists seeing it for the first time, though there may be some disagreement about whether it's proper to graft a Greek prefix onto a Latin verb.

This yields machina autodocta, which is equivalent to the previous suggestion. But we can play around with the verbal sense:

machina autodocens (self-teaching machine, a machine that is teaching itself)

ars machinae autodocentis (the field of study related to self-teaching machines)