Deep learning demos + roundtable discussion

Hi neural netters,

Last time we met was back in June. Since then, there have been a handful of developments in deep learning--this includes research into different types of nonlinearities (max out, "p-norm"), using autoencoders as generative models, and some very nifty research related to NLP and how learned word vectors can be linearly combined for interesting results--eg. vector('queen')+vector('chair') ~= vector('throne'). There's a lot of work going into applications of deep learning now.

Meanwhile, my company has also been heads down working on Ersatz, our deep learning PaaS. It's got a long way to go, but I'm comfortable saying it's currently the most powerful and easy to use set of deep learning tools available. Then again, it's not yet a crowded market (wait till this time next year...)

So let's have a meetup. Last time, I did a demo for the first half and had sort of a free wheeling roundtable discussion during the second half. I think the roundtable worked particularly well, so let's do that again. I'll make sure to get it on tape this time :-)

So agenda:

Since dreamforce (big salesforce.com convention) is in town, I'll be demoing an actual real life use case for using neural networks (in this case, the networks implemented in Ersatz) to plan a day's calls for a busy salesperson automatically--IE, answer the question "Statistically, what are the most beneficial actions I can take today in order to improve my odds of hitting my sales target?"

I'll also show a much more "fun" demo where I take a bunch of learned word vectors and map them into a 3 dimensional space using T-SNE and render something like 300,000 unique words into a 3d space using three.js w/ webGL.

Then we'll just discuss whatever you want re: machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, moving towards AI, how it all ties together, etc. etc.

Booze will be provided as per usual. Because if there's anything that goes with hardcore optimization of graphical models, it's booze...

Re: group in general:

Lately (like, last 6 months), I haven't had enough time to host these as often as I'd like. SO if anyone would like to step up and help out with hosting the one after this (which will probably be NIPS 2013 themed), I'd be ecstatic! So anyway, let me know if you'd be up for planning one of these.

Thanks everyone, hope to see you there!