Machines that learn

I wanted to design a machine that learns, always have ever since I saw wargames with Matthew Broderick. Trouble is it ain't easy. Humans are very good at seeing patterns and I wondered if this has anything to do with the ability to learn. Maybe if we see patterns we're able to apply previous experience to similar situations. On another note I was thinking that a tree of decisions where each node is itself a tree creating thing. This would tie in with the idea of CNN where there is a bias feedback loop between nodes. Ok so I am starting to like the idea that each node in a tree is itself a tree creating thinking machine, I like the idea that all this tree has knowledge of is what ever is below it i.e. its children and its childrens children e.t.c.