Deep learning's origins and pioneers

The concept of deep learning has been around since the 1950s. Take a brief look at how it evolved from concept to actuality and the key people who made it happen. It is too early to write a full history of deep learning--and some of the details are contested--but we can already trace an admittedly incomplete outline of its origins and identify some of the pioneers. They include Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, who as early as 1943 proposed an artificial neuron (PDF–1.2MB), Bernard Widrow and Ted Hoff at Stanford University, developed a neural-network application by reducing noise in phone lines in the late 1950s. Around the same time, Frank Rosenblatt, an American psychologist, introduced the idea of a device called the Perceptron (PDF–1.55MB),