Every day, we share countless photos and videos on Facebook. To be able to sift through this data more intelligently, Facebook has now hired machine learning expert Yann LeCun, who specializes in ‘deep learning.’
‘Deep learning‘ is a part of artificial intelligence (AI) which aims to replicate the way human brain works. It is a technique that essentially aims at understanding things exactly the way humans understand things. For instance, if you see a photo and realize that it contains some of your friends, an ideal deep learning software will be able to identify as much.
It is probably for this very goal that LeCun has been hired by Facebook. Just imagine the infinite amount of data Facebook gets every day. By understanding this data well enough, Facebook can dish out targeted and tailored ads, suggest content that is relevant to each individual user and develop new features for the users.
According to Andrew Ng, another deep learning expert, “Yann LeCun‘s move will be an exciting step both for machine learning and for Facebook, which has a lot of unique social data. Machine learning is already used in hundreds of places throughout Facebook, ranging from photo tagging to ranking articles to your newsfeed. Better machine learning will be able to help improve all of these features, as well as help Facebook create new applications that none of us have dreamed of yet.”
To cite an example, by using different scanning layers, deep learning can identify different objects in a photo as well as the persons present in it. Moreover, a more intelligent deep learning software can even identify the kind of clothes you are wearing, the watch that is on your wrist and similar other details.
And this data is absolutely invaluable for Facebook. For instance, if Facebook’s deep learning software learns that you are wearing warm clothes, it may push you ads related to sweaters and jackets. Similarly, if you are wearing a branded wrist watch, the social network may serve you ads about the new watch models from the same brand.
In this way, new deep learning techniques can enable Facebook to improve the overall user experience and at the same time, adopt more successful advertising strategies. And LeCun is here to help the company, with his 25 years of experience and an excellent understanding of deep learning techniques.
Courtesy: Pop Sci
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