Objective
Understand the foundations of deep learning and how it differs from traditional machine
learning.
Identify key components and architectures used in deep learning.
Explore popular applications of deep learning in real-world domains.
Get familiar with key terms like neural networks, activation functions, backpropagation,
CNNs, RNNs, and Transformers.
1. What is Deep Learning?
Deep Learning is a branch of Machine Learning that uses algorithms known as Artificial
Neural Networks (ANNs), inspired by how the human brain processes information.
Traditional ML: Relies heavily on hand-crafted features.
Deep Learning: Automatically extracts features from raw data using multiple layers of
neurons.
Deep learning learns representations directly from data with minimal human intervention.
2. Neural Networks – The Building Blocks
2.1 What is a Neural Network?
Artificial Neuron: Takes input, multiplies it with weights, adds a bias, and passes it
through an activation function.
Architecture:
o Input Layer: Takes raw data.
o Hidden Layers: Perform computations and extract features.
o Output Layer: Produces the final result.
2.2 Feedforward Neural Network (FNN)
The simplest form.
Data moves in one direction — input → output.
2.3 Activation Functions
Used to introduce non-linearity.
Activation Function Formula Use Case
ReLU (Rectified Linear f(x) = max(0, x) Most popular, fast
Unit) convergence
Sigmoid f(x) = 1 / (1 + e^(-x)) Probabilistic outputs
Tanh f(x) = (e^x - e^(-x)) / (e^x + e^(- Zero-centered activation
x))
3. 🔁 Backpropagation and Training
3.1 Forward Pass
Input is passed through the network to get an output.
3.2 Loss Function
Measures the error between predicted and actual output.
o Example: Mean Squared Error, Cross-Entropy Loss
3.3 Backpropagation
Calculates gradients of the loss with respect to each weight.
Uses Gradient Descent to update weights and minimize the error.
🎯 Think of it like a student adjusting their strategy based on test feedback.
4. Popular Deep Learning Architectures
4.1 Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)
Best for: Image classification, object detection.
Components: Convolution layers, pooling layers, fully connected layers.
4.2 Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs)
Best for: Sequence data (e.g., time series, text).
Variants: LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory), GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit).
4.3 Transformers (e.g., BERT, GPT)
Best for: NLP tasks.
Uses attention mechanisms to process all elements in a sequence at once.
5. 🚀 Applications of Deep Learning
Domain Application
Computer Vision Face recognition, medical imaging, autonomous vehicles
NLP Chatbots, sentiment analysis, translation
Audio Speech-to-text, music generation
Healthcare Disease prediction, medical image analysis
Finance Fraud detection, stock prediction
6. Tools and Frameworks
TensorFlow
PyTorch
Keras
OpenCV (for vision tasks)
7. Advantages and Challenges
Advantages
High accuracy with large data
Learns features automatically
Scalable and flexible
Challenges
Requires large datasets
Computationally expensive (needs GPU/TPU)
Lack of interpretability ("black-box" nature)
