A Golden Decade of Deep Learning: Computing Systems & Applications

The past decade has seen tremendous progress in the field of artificial intelligence thanks to the resurgence of neural networks through deep learning. This has helped improve the ability for computers to see, hear, and understand the world around them, leading to dramatic advances in the application of AI to many fields of science and other areas of human endeavor. In this essay, I examine the reasons for this progress, including the confluence of progress in computing hardware designed to accelerate machine learning and the emergence of open-source software frameworks to dramatically expand the set of people who can use machine learning effectively. I also present a broad overview of some of the areas in which machine learning has been applied over the past decade. Finally, I sketch out some likely directions from which further progress in artificial intelligence will come.