On Neural Networks

I am only a layman in the neural network space so the ideas and opinions in this column are sure to be refined by comments from more knowledgeable readers. The recent successes of multilayer neural networks have made headlines. Much earlier work on what I imagine to be single-layer networks proved to have limitations. Indeed, the famous book, Perceptrons,a by Turing laureate Marvin Minsky and his colleague Seymour Papert put the kibosh (that's a technical term) on further research in this space for some time. Among the most visible signs of advancement in this arena is the success of the DeepMind AlphaGo multilayer neural network that beat the international grand Go champion, Lee Sedol, four games out of five in March 2016 in Seoul.b