What is deep learning (deep neural networking)

Deep learning is an aspect of artificial intelligence (AI) that is concerned with emulating the learning approach that human beings use to gain certain types of knowledge. At its simplest, deep learning can be thought of as a way to automate predictive analytics.

While traditional machine learning algorithms are linear, deep learning algorithms are stacked in a hierarchy of increasing complexity and abstraction. To understand deep learning, imagine a toddler whose first word is “dog.” The toddler learns what is (and what is not) a dog by pointing to objects and saying the word “dog.” The parent says “Yes, that is a dog” or “No, that is not a dog.” As the toddler continues to point to objects, he becomes more aware of the features that all dogs possess. What the toddler does, without knowing it, is to clarify a complex abstraction (the concept of dog) by building a hierarchy in which each level of abstraction is created with knowledge that was gained from the preceding layer of the hierarchy.

Computer programs that use deep learning go through much the same process. Each algorithm in the hierarchy applies a non-linear transformation on its input and uses what it learns to create a statistical model as output. Iterations continue until the output has reached an acceptable level of accuracy. The number of processing layers through which data must pass is what inspired the label “deep.”

Source: WhatIs.com