neural network

noun

Updated on: 14 May 2018

Definition of neural network

: a computer architecture in which a number of processors are interconnected in a manner suggestive of the connections between neurons in a human brain and which is able to learn by a process of trial and error — called also neural net

Recent Examples of neural network from the Web

In research published today in Nature, computer scientists have designed a neural network that was able not only to navigate through a maze, but learned to find shortcuts in the same way that a mammal would.

— john wenz, Popular Mechanics, "Neural Networks Learn to Take Shortcuts Through a Maze Just Like a Mammal Would," 9 May 2018
There are a set of artificial intelligence software programs that are categorized as deep learning and actually simulate the neural networks of the brain’s neocortex and process large, complex data sets and image recognition.

— karen turner, Vox, "Avengers: Infinity War’s superheroes, explained by an evolutionary biologist," 27 Apr. 2018
The cofounders trained deep neural networks on hundreds of speech samples to produce a bank of customizable near-perfect voices for use in audiobooks and voiceovers.

— sandra upson, WIRED, "At Y Combinator's Demo Day, The Age of Overpromises Is Over," 20 Mar. 2018
Laboratory tests reveal that deep neural networks are easily confused by minor changes.

— meredith broussard, The Atlantic, "Self-Driving Cars Still Don't Know How to See," 20 Mar. 2018
This is Far Cry 5’s approach to direct topical politics: awkwardly dropping buzzwords into characters’ mouths like a neural network trained on an infinite loop of Fox & Friends.

— adi robertson, The Verge, "Far Cry 5 wasn’t a game for the Trump era, but it tried to be one anyway," 6 Apr. 2018
That includes ideas such as neural networks, a machine-learning technique that can be trained on datasets before being set loose to use that knowledge.

— nicole kobie, Teen Vogue, "Artificial Intelligence Isn't Good for Women, But We Can Fix It," 4 Apr. 2018
Voicery — whose name blends voice and sorcery — uses data from more than 100 voices and feeds it into its neural networks, training the machines to sound more human, Ullman said.

— wendy lee, San Francisco Chronicle, "Startups in the spotlight: Voicery, Lytro and KeepTruckin," 2 Apr. 2018
Having built up a database of sounds, an artificial neural network, a form of machine learning used for pattern recognition, was employed to help build algorithms that can match bee sounds to those associated with certain hive problems.

— The Economist, "A new app listens to the problems of bees," 28 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'neural network.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of neural network

1847

in the meaning defined above

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