When you talk to some people about deep learning, they think of some
deep dark mystery, but deep learning really isn’t a mystery at all — you
use it every time you talk to your smartphone, so you have it with you
every day. In fact, you find deep learning used everywhere. For example, you see it when using many applications online and even when you shop. You are surrounded by deep learning and don’t even realize it, which makes learning about deep learning essential because you can use it to do so much more than you might think possible.
Other people have another view of deep learning that has no basis in reality. They think that somehow deep learning will be responsible for some dire apocalypse, but that really isn’t possible with today’s technology. More likely is that someone will find a way to use deep learning to create fake people in order to commit crimes or to bilk the government out of thousands of dollars. However, killer robots are most definitely not part of the future.
Whether you’re part of the mystified crowd or the killer robot crowd, we hope that you’ll read Deep Learning For Dummies with the goal of understanding what deep learning can actually do. This technology can probably do a lot more in the way of mundane tasks than you think possible, but it also has limits, and you need to know about both.