Understanding Neural Network, Visually
198 points by surprisetalk 4 days ago | 24 comments
helloplanets 7 hours ago
For the visual learners, here's a classic intro to how LLMs work: https://bbycroft.net/llm
replyesafak 7 hours ago
This is just scratching the surface -- where neural networks were thirty years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MNIST_database
replyIf you want to understand neural networks, keep going.
8cvor6j844qw_d6 4 hours ago
Oh wow, this looks like a 3d render of a perceptron when I started reading about neural networks. I guess essentially neural networks are built based on that idea? Inputs > weight function to to adjust the final output to desired values?
replyge96 6 hours ago
I like the style of the site it has a "vintage" look
replyDon't think it's moire effect but yeah looking at the pattern
jetfire_1711 3 hours ago
Spent 10 minutes on the site and I think this is where I'll start my day from next week! I just love visual based learning.
reply4fterd4rk 8 hours ago
Great explanation, but the last question is quite simple. You determine the weights via brute force. Simply running a large amount of data where you have the input as well as the correct output (handwriting to text in this case).
replyggambetta 7 hours ago
"Brute force" would be trying random weights and keeping the best performing model. Backpropagation is compute-intensive but I wouldn't call it "brute force".
replyanon291 5 hours ago
Nice visuals, but misses the mark. Neural networks transform vector spaces, and collect points into bins. This visualization shows the structure of the computation. This is akin to displaying a Matrix vector multiplication in Wx + b notation, except W,x,and b have more exciting displays.
replyIt completely misses the mark on what it means to 'weight' (linearly transform), bias (affine transform) and then non-linearly transform (i.e, 'collect') points into bins
titzer 4 hours ago
> but misses the mark
replyIt doesn't match the pictures in your head, but it nevertheless does present a mental representation the author (and presumably some readers) find useful.
Instead of nitpicking, perhaps pointing to a better visualization (like maybe this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChfEO8l-fas) could help others learn. Otherwise it's just frustrating to read comments like this.
I hope make more of these, I'd love to see a transformer presented more clearly.