What Really is Deep Learning Doing? (1711.03577v1)

Abstract: Deep learning has achieved a great success in many areas, from computer vision to natural language processing, to game playing, and much more. Yet, what deep learning is really doing is still an open question. There are a lot of works in this direction. For example, [5] tried to explain deep learning by group renormalization, and [6] tried to explain deep learning from the view of functional approximation. In order to address this very crucial question, here we see deep learning from perspective of mechanical learning and learning machine (see [1], [2]). From this particular angle, we can see deep learning much better and answer with confidence: What deep learning is really doing? why it works well, how it works, and how much data is necessary for learning. We also will discuss advantages and disadvantages of deep learning at the end of this work.