Recent Advances for a Better Understanding of Deep Learning Part I

This call for a better understanding of deep learning was the core of Ali Rahimi's Test-of-Time Award presentation at NIPS in December 2017. By comparing deep learning with alchemy, the goal of Ali was not to dismiss the entire field, but "to open a conversation". This goal has definitely been achieved and people are still debating whether our current practice of deep learning should be considered as alchemy, engineering or science. Seven months later, the machine learning community gathered again, this time in Stockholm for the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). With more than 5,000 participants and 629 papers published, it was one of the most important events regarding fundamental machine learning research.