20 years ago the very first crude neural nets were just getting started
The very first artificial neural networks were in the 1940s. Perceptrons 1958. Backprop 1975. That was over 40 years ago.
In 1992 Gerry Tesauro made a neural-network-based computer program that played world-class backgammon. That was 25 years ago.
What’s about 20 years old is “deep learning”, which really just means neural networks of a kind that was generally too expensive longer ago and that has become practical as a result of advances in hardware. (That’s not quite fair. There’s been plenty of progress in the design and training of these NNs, as a result of having fast enough hardware for them to be worth experimenting with.)
The very first artificial neural networks were in the 1940s. Perceptrons 1958. Backprop 1975. That was over 40 years ago.
In 1992 Gerry Tesauro made a neural-network-based computer program that played world-class backgammon. That was 25 years ago.
What’s about 20 years old is “deep learning”, which really just means neural networks of a kind that was generally too expensive longer ago and that has become practical as a result of advances in hardware. (That’s not quite fair. There’s been plenty of progress in the design and training of these NNs, as a result of having fast enough hardware for them to be worth experimenting with.)