What is Deep Learning?

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that involves Artificial Neural Networks to solve complex problems by mimicking human behavior. Neural networks are designed in such a way that they resemble the human brain’s capabilities and can learn complex patterns and make predictions by analyzing large amounts of data.

In deep learning, the model is trained on massive amounts of data, and this data teaches the model how to recognize patterns and make predictions.

These models take information from multiple data sources and analyze the data in real-time without the need for human intervention.

How Does Deep Learning Works?

It works by using artificial neural networks. Neural networks are designed in such a way that they resemble the human brain’s capabilities and mimic human behavior. Each neuron receives input from other neurons and sends output to other neurons.

These models are made up of interconnected nodes that use mathematical calculations to process data. These nodes get arranged in layers, where each layer receives input from the previous layer and sends output to the next layer.

These neural networks attempt to mimic the human brain through a combination of data inputs, weights, and biases. These elements work together to accurately recognize, classify, and describe objects within the data.

Types of Deep Learning Layers

1. Input layer: This is the first layer of a this model. This layer receives the data in text, images, videos, etc., the format in which the model gets trained. 

2. Hidden layers: Hidden layers are where the model learns to recognize patterns in the data. The number of hidden layers depends on the complexity of the task that the model is trying to learn. These hidden layers process information at different levels, adapting their behavior as they receive new information. Deep learning networks have hundreds of hidden layers that they can use to analyze a problem from several different angles.

3. Output layer: In this layer, the results of the computations will show up. This layer produces the predictions that the model makes.

Neural netwroks in deeplearning
A representation of neural netwroks in deeplearning

Deep Learning applications

It is used in various applications, such as:

  • Financial services: Deep Learning algorithms are used in a variety of financial services applications such as stock market prediction, risk management, credit risk assessment, fraud detection, etc.
  • Healthcare: It has revolutionized healthcare by developing certain applications that can improve diagnostics, treatment, and patient outcomes. These applications assist in diagnosing diseases from medical images like CT scans, X-rays, and MRIs, predicting patient outcomes, and drug discovery.
  • Fraud Detection: These algorithms help in recognizing and preventing fraudulent transactions, such as credit card fraud, net banking fraud, etc., and are used in a variety of applications, such as banking and insurance.
  • Image and video recognition: These models are trained on large image and video datasets, which helps the model identify and classify objects in the images and videos. It improves the application efficiency in image processing tasks such as object recognition, facial recognition, and scenario understanding.
  • Gaming and Virtual Reality: Deep learning has revolutionized the gaming and virtual reality industry by improving graphics rendering, game AI, and character animation, and enhancing player experiences.
  • Virtual Assistants: These models are trained on the large datasets containing the user experiences, and they learn the command patterns that help the virtual assistants provide a better user experience based on past experiences. It assists the virtual assistant in understanding the user command effectively and responding accordingly.
  • Natural Language Processing: These algorithms can automatically extract meaning from the text and hence bring a radicle growth in NLP. It is used to understand, process, and generate human language. It is used in a variety of applications, such as sentiment analysis, text summarization, language translation, question answering, chatbots, etc.

To learn more about the different deep learning applications, you can refer to our detailed article – Which are common applications of Deep Learning in Artificial Intelligence

Deep Learning vs Machine Learning

Following is the comparison between these two:

1. Architecture

  • Machine Learning: Machine learning models can be linear or non-linear and generalize patterns from the training data to make predictions.
  • Deep Learning: These models use artificial neural networks and have many layers.

2. Complexity

  • Machine learning is less complex, while deep learning is more complex.

3. Approach

  • Machine learning: Machine learning is a broader term and includes both statistical and modern algorithms like decision trees.
  • Deep learning: It is a subset of machine learning and focuses on neural networks that mimic human behavior.

4. Data requirements

  • Machine learning requires less training data, whereas deep learning requires more training data.

5. Performance

  • Machine learning might not perform well with unstructured data, while deep learning performs well with unstructured data like images, and videos.

6. Accuracy

  • Machine learning can be less accurate for certain tasks, while deep learning can be more accurate for some specific tasks.

7. Parameters

  • Deep learning has a large number of parameters, while machine learning has a small number of parameters.

8. Applications

  • Machine learning is used in applications like fraud detection, credit scoring, etc., while deep learning excels in applications like image and video recognition, speech recognition, NLP, etc.

9. Computational requirements

  • Machine learning requires fewer computational requirements which makes it less computationally expensive, while deep learning is more computationally expensive and requires high GPUs.

Deep learning hardware requirements

It is computationally expensive as it requires a large amount of computing power, such as Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). Having multiple GPUs involves a high cost; that’s why it is computationally expensive.

What is CNN in deep learning?

CNN stands for Convolutional Neural Network, which is a type of Deep Learning neural network specifically designed for image recognition and processing tasks such as image recognition, image classification, and object detection.

CNNs can learn complex patterns from data and are highly accurate on a variety of tasks.

Convolutional Neural Network


CNNs are used in a variety of tasks including:

  • NLP (Natural Language Processing)
  • Speech recognition
  • Image recognition
  • Image Restoration
  • Object detection
  • Object classification
  • Image segmentation

Advantages of CNNs

  • CNNs can perform a variety of tasks such as NLP, image recognition, object detection, etc.
  • CNNs can be trained on massive datasets.
  • CNN has high accuracy in visual data analysis.
  • They can learn complex patterns from data.
  • They can prove crucial in healthcare due to their ability to analyze medical images such as MRI scans, CT scans, and X-rays.

Challenges of using CNN

  • CNNs are computationally expensive to train and deploy and require many GPUs.
  • CNNs require a massive amount of data to train, which can be hard to create.

What is RNN in deep learning?

RNN stands for Recurrent Neural Network, which is a type of Deep Learning neural network specifically designed and developed to process sequential data. It consists of multiple layers in which the output from one layer is fed back to the same layer as the input.

RNNs are capable of capturing dependencies and patterns in sequential data and are used in a variety of tasks like speech recognition, time series, etc.

RNNs are used in a variety of sequential data processing tasks such as:

  • Speech recognition
  • Language modelling
  • Time series forecasting
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP)
  • Music Generation

Type of RNNS

  • Simple RNN: This RNN is the most basic one and has a single hidden layer in which the output of this hidden layer is fed back as input into the same layer.
  • LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory): LSTM has a complex architecture and is used to capture long-term dependencies in data.
  • GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit): GRUs are a type of RNN that are similar to LSTMs, but they have a simpler structure.

Advantages of RNN

  • RNNs are used in a variety of tasks, such as NLP, speech recognition, music generation, etc.
  • RNNs have high accuracy on a variety of tasks.
  • They can be trained on large datasets.
  • RNNs capture long-term dependencies in data.

Challenges of RNN

  • One challenge with the traditional RNN is the vanishing gradient problem.
  • They can be computationally expensive to train and deploy.
  • They can be difficult to interpret.

What is a Transformer in deep learning?

A transformer is a type of Deep Learning neural network that is designed for natural language processing (NLP) tasks.

The transformer does not use either RNNs or CNNs, and it relies on a self-attention mechanism, which allows the model to learn long-range dependencies in the input sequence data.

Features of Transformer

  • Self-attention mechanism: The transformer uses a self-attention mechanism to learn long-dependencies in the input data.
  • Positional encoding: The transformer uses positional encoding to learn the order of the input data.
  • Multi-Head Attention: The transformer uses multiple heads of attention to learn different aspects of the input data.
  • Encoder and Decoder: The Transformer consists of an encoder and a decoder. In the encoder, the self-attention mechanism is used to process the input sequence while in the decoder, self-attention is combined with another attention mechanism that focuses on the encoded input sequence.
  • Training: The Transformer is trained in a supervised manner.
  • Feed-forward layers: In addition to the attention mechanisms, the transformer uses feed-forward layers to learn non-linear relationships between the input and output data.

Transformer Applications

The transformer is used in a variety of natural language processing tasks, including:

  • Sentiment analysis
  • Text summarization
  • Question Answering
  • Text generation
  • Machine translation

What is Batch Normalization in Deep Learning?

Batch Normalization
Batch Normalization

Batch normalization in deep learning is a technique that improves the training, reliability, and efficiency of neural networks. This technique makes neural networks faster and more stable helps to stabilize the learning process, and prevents the model from overfitting.

A neural network is trained using a collected set of input data called a batch. Similarly, batch normalization takes place in batches and not as a single input.

It is effective in improving the performance of deep neural networks on a variety of tasks, such as natural language processing, speech recognition, and image classification.

How does batch normalization work?

In each layer of a neural network, the inputs provided to the layers can have varying means and variances during training. The goal of batch normalization is to normalize these inputs by making them have a mean close to zero and a variance close to one.

Instead of normalizing the inputs individually, Batch Normalization operates on mini-batches of data during training. For each mini-batch, it computes the mean and variance of the inputs provided and then normalizes them.

How does batch normalization work?

In each layer of a neural network, the inputs provided to the layers can have varying means and variances during training. The goal of batch normalization is to normalize these inputs by making them have a mean close to zero and a variance close to one.
Instead of normalizing the inputs individually, Batch Normalization operates on mini-batches of data during training. For each mini-batch, it computes the mean and variance of the inputs provided and then normalizes them.

Advantages of using batch normalization:

  • Stabilize the training process: Batch Normalization reduces the internal covariate shift, leading to more stable and faster convergence during training. It helps to stabilize the learning process by preventing the activations on the network from becoming too large or too small. It can help to prevent the network from overfitting to the training data.
  • Improves generalization: Batch Normalization helps to improve the generalization performance of the network by making it less sensitive to small changes in the input data.
  • Increases training speed: It helps to increase the training speed of the network by making the learning process more efficient.
  • Reduces the need for careful initialization

Challenges of using Batch Normalization

  • Requires more training data
  • Difficult to tune
  • Biased output

What is Regularization in Deep Learning?

Regularization in deep learning is a technique used to prevent overfitting and improve the generalization performance of a model. Overfitting occurs when a model learns to perform well on the training data but fails to generalize to new, unseen data.

Regularization helps to prevent overfitting by adding constraints to the model, such as limiting the size of the weights or adding noise to the data. Its goal is to reduce overfitting and keep, at the same time, the training error as low as possible.

Following are some of the common regularization techniques:

  • L1 regularization: L1 regularization adds a penalty to the sum of the absolute values of the weights. It helps to prevent the weights from becoming too large, which can help to prevent overfitting.
  • L2 regularization: It adds a penalty to the sum of the squares of the weights. It discourages the model from having too large parameter values.
  • Dropout: It is a technique where some neurons are dropped randomly from the network during training. It helps to prevent the network from becoming too reliant on any particular set of neurons.
  • DropConnect: Similar to dropout, DropConnect randomly sets a fraction of connections in the network to zero during training. It prevents the co-adaptation of neurons and helps regularize the model.
  • Data augmentation: Data augmentation artificially increases the size of the training data by creating new data from the existing data. It helps to prevent overfitting by making the model more robust to small changes in the input data.
  • Noise Injection
  • Early Stopping

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What is Deep Learning in simple words?

A: It is a subset of machine learning that involves Artificial Neural Networks to solve complex problems by mimicking human behavior.

Q2: What is CNN in deep learning?

A: CNN stands for Convolutional Neural Network, which is a type of Deep Learning neural network specifically designed for image recognition and processing tasks such as image recognition, image classification, and object detection.

Q3: What is RNN in deep learning?

A: RNN stands for Recurrent Neural Network, which is a type of Deep Learning neural network specifically designed and developed to process sequential data. It consists of multiple layers in which the output from one layer is fed back to the same layer as the input.

Q4: What are the types of deep learning?

A: Ther are three types of it:
1. CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)
2. RNN (Recurrent Neural Network)
3. MLP (Multi-Layer Perceptrons)

Q5: What is a transformer in deep learning?

A: A transformer is a type of Deep Learning neural network that is designed for natural language processing (NLP) tasks.