Imagine a highly banal situation: a busy junction in a major city, vehicles of every color and description, some moving and others waiting for the lights to change. This situation may be boring to death, but fast, powerful computers can view it differently. Once they are "taught" to pick up and distinguish between the most minute details within the larger picture (machine learning, in the professional jargon), they will be able to identify different car models of various colors and issue warnings of irregular events that are about to happen. For example, a man wearing a heavy overcoat when everyone else is wearing short, light garments, or a person under whose clothes a long-bladed knife is protruding, could generate an alert moments before an attack. It is important to understand that machine learning is only one element of the rapidly developing field known as artificial intelligence.