What is a neural network?

A neural network is a method in artificial intelligence that teaches computers to process data in a
way that is inspired by the human brain. It is a type of machine learning process, called deep
learning, that uses interconnected nodes or neurons in a layered structure that resembles the
human brain. It creates an adaptive system that computers use to learn from their mistakes and
improve continuously. Thus, artificial neural networks attempt to solve complicated problems, like
summarizing documents or recognizing faces, with greater accuracy.
Why are neural networks important?
Neural networks can help computers make intelligent decisions with limited human assistance.
This is because they can learn and model the relationships between input and output data that
are nonlinear and complex. For instance, they can do the following tasks.
Make generalizations and inferences
Neural networks can comprehend unstructured data and make general observations without
explicit training. For instance, they can recognize that two different input sentences have a similar
meaning:
 Can you tell me how to make the payment?
 How do I transfer money?
A neural network would know that both sentences mean the same thing. Or it would be able to
broadly recognize that Baxter Road is a place, but Baxter Smith is a person’s name.
What are neural networks used for?
Neural networks have several use cases across many industries, such as the following:
 Medical diagnosis by medical image classification
 Targeted marketing by social network filtering and behavioral data analysis
 Financial predictions by processing historical data of financial instruments
 Electrical load and energy demand forecasting
 Process and quality control
 Chemical compound identification
We give four of the important applications of neural networks below.
Computer vision
Computer vision is the ability of computers to extract information and insights from images and
videos. With neural networks, computers can distinguish and recognize images similar to
humans. Computer vision has several applications, such as the following:
 Visual recognition in self-driving cars so they can recognize road signs and other road users
 Content moderation to automatically remove unsafe or inappropriate content from image and
video archives
 Facial recognition to identify faces and recognize attributes like open eyes, glasses, and facial
hair
 Image labeling to identify brand logos, clothing, safety gear, and other image details
Speech recognition
Neural networks can analyze human speech despite varying speech patterns, pitch, tone,
language, and accent. Virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa and automatic transcription software
use speech recognition to do tasks like these:
 Assist call center agents and automatically classify calls
 Convert clinical conversations into documentation in real time
 Accurately subtitle videos and meeting recordings for wider content reach
Natural language processing
 Natural language processing (NLP) is the ability to process natural, human-created text. Neural
networks help computers gather insights and meaning from text data and documents. NLP has
several use cases, including in these functions:
 Automated virtual agents and chatbots
 Automatic organization and classification of written data
 Business intelligence analysis of long-form documents like emails and forms
 Indexing of key phrases that indicate sentiment, like positive and negative comments on social
media
 Document summarization and article generation for a given topic
Recommendation engines
Neural networks can track user activity to develop personalized recommendations. They can also
analyze all user behavior and discover new products or services that interest a specific user. For
example, Curalate, a Philadelphia-based startup, helps brands convert social media posts into
sales. Brands use Curalate’s intelligent product tagging (IPT) service to automate the collection
and curation of user-generated social content. IPT uses neural networks to automatically find and
recommend products relevant to the user’s social media activity. Consumers don't have to hunt
through online catalogs to find a specific product from a social media image. Instead, they can
use Curalate’s auto product tagging to purchase the product with ease.
How do neural networks work?
The human brain is the inspiration behind neural network architecture. Human brain cells, called
neurons, form a complex, highly interconnected network and send electrical signals to each other
to help humans process information. Similarly, an artificial neural network is made of artificial
neurons that work together to solve a problem. Artificial neurons are software modules, called
nodes, and artificial neural networks are software programs or algorithms that, at their core, use
computing systems to solve mathematical calculations.
Simple neural network architecture
A basic neural network has interconnected artificial neurons in three layers:
Input Layer
Information from the outside world enters the artificial neural network from the input layer. Input
nodes process the data, analyze or categorize it, and pass it on to the next layer.
Hidden Layer
Hidden layers take their input from the input layer or other hidden layers. Artificial neural networks
can have a large number of hidden layers. Each hidden layer analyzes the output from the
previous layer, processes it further, and passes it on to the next layer.
Output Layer
The output layer gives the final result of all the data processing by the artificial neural network. It
can have single or multiple nodes. For instance, if we have a binary (yes/no) classification
problem, the output layer will have one output node, which will give the result as 1 or 0. However,
if we have a multi-class classification problem, the output layer might consist of more than one
output node.
Deep neural network architecture
Deep neural networks, or deep learning networks, have several hidden layers with millions of
artificial neurons linked together. A number, called weight, represents the connections between
one node and another. The weight is a positive number if one node excites another, or negative if
one node suppresses the other. Nodes with higher weight values have more influence on the
other nodes.
Theoretically, deep neural networks can map any input type to any output type. However, they
also need much more training as compared to other machine learning methods. They need
 millions of examples of training data rather than perhaps the hundreds or thousands that a
simpler network might need.
What are the types of neural networks?
Artificial neural networks can be categorized by how the data flows from the input node to the
output node. Below are some examples:
Feedforward neural networks
Feedforward neural networks process data in one direction, from the input node to the output
node. Every node in one layer is connected to every node in the next layer. A feedforward
network uses a feedback process to improve predictions over time.
Backpropagation algorithm
Artificial neural networks learn continuously by using corrective feedback loops to improve their
predictive analytics. In simple terms, you can think of the data flowing from the input node to the
output node through many different paths in the neural network. Only one path is the correct one
that maps the input node to the correct output node. To find this path, the neural network uses a
feedback loop, which works as follows:
1. Each node makes a guess about the next node in the path.
2. It checks if the guess was correct. Nodes assign higher weight values to paths that lead to more
correct guesses and lower weight values to node paths that lead to incorrect guesses.
3. For the next data point, the nodes make a new prediction using the higher weight paths and then
repeat Step 1.
Convolutional neural networks
The hidden layers in convolutional neural networks perform specific mathematical functions, like
summarizing or filtering, called convolutions. They are very useful for image classification
because they can extract relevant features from images that are useful for image recognition and
classification. The new form is easier to process without losing features that are critical for making
a good prediction. Each hidden layer extracts and processes different image features, like edges,
color, and depth.
How to train neural networks?
Neural network training is the process of teaching a neural network to perform a task. Neural
networks learn by initially processing several large sets of labeled or unlabeled data. By using
these examples, they can then process unknown inputs more accurately.
Supervised learning
In supervised learning, data scientists give artificial neural networks labeled datasets that provide
the right answer in advance. For example, a deep learning network training in facial recognition
initially processes hundreds of thousands of images of human faces, with various terms related to
ethnic origin, country, or emotion describing each image.
The neural network slowly builds knowledge from these datasets, which provide the right answer
in advance. After the network has been trained, it starts making guesses about the ethnic origin
or emotion of a new image of a human face that it has never processed before.