Deep Learning is Revolutionary

10 reasons why deep learning is living up to the hype

Oliver Cameron
Transmission
3 min readOct 31, 2016

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WaveNet

Many have written about how deep learning is taking over the world and why that is important; I cannot echo them enough. Playing with deep learning is the closest I’ve ever felt to being a magician, and it’s become clear to me that every (great) piece of software will be powered by deep learning within the next ~3 years. However, deep learning isn’t mainstream yet, so I thought I’d share work by some very talented contributors, in the hopes to bring it just that little bit closer.

Quick note: I’ve started a weekly email newsletter covering all things deep learning and self-driving cars. I call it Transmission, sign up today!

Here’s ten reasons why I think deep learning is living up to the hype…

1 Stuck with a low-resolution photo? Deep learning can predict what the higher-resolution photo might look like, and add missing details

…it’s equally impressive for anime art

2 Deep learning has enabled a text-to-speech system that is almost indistinguishable from human voice. Think of the possibilities!

3 Deep learning can compose classical music that you’d believe to be created by a human

4 Deep learning can replicate the style of your favorite painter with the image of your choice

Read a paper on this technique here.

5 Deep learning can even generate fonts!

6Deep learning can auto-fill missing parts of an image, by predicting what should be in that space

7Deep learning can train a robot to walk like a human

Without being taught, the deep learning robot rises from the floor to a standing position. Image courtesy of the University of Washington

…or train a robot to grasp objects like a human

8Deep learning can caption an image, just like a human would

9Want to sketch a beautiful landscape but can’t draw? Don’t worry, deep learning can take it from here!

10Best of all (at least to me), you can train a deep neural network to steer a car, just like a human

…it even turns out Grand Theft Auto is a great simulation environment for training a self-driving car

We’ve spent decades building and refining machines to be computationally powerful. In the next decade I hope we discover what the human race will be empowered to do when our software thinks.

I’ve started a weekly email newsletter covering all things deep learning and self-driving cars: I call it Transmission, sign up today!

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Oliver Cameron
Transmission

Obsessed with AI. Built self-driving cars at Cruise and Voyage. Board member at Skyways. Y Combinator alum. Angel investor in 50+ AI startups.