ABOUT THIS BOOK xvii
Who should read this book
This book is written for people with Python programming experience who want to get
started with machine learning and deep learning. But this book can also be valuable
to many different types of readers:
If you’re a data scientist familiar with machine learning, this book will provide
you with a solid, practical introduction to deep learning, the fastest-growing
and most significant subfield of machine learning.
If you’re a deep-learning expert looking to get started with the Keras frame-
work, you’ll find this book to be the best Keras crash course available.
If you’re a graduate student studying deep learning in a formal setting, you’ll
find this book to be a practical complement to your education, helping you
build intuition around the behavior of deep neural networks and familiarizing
you with key best practices.
Even technically minded people who don’t code regularly will find this book useful as
an introduction to both basic and advanced deep-learning concepts.
In order to use Keras, you’ll need reasonable Python proficiency. Additionally, famil-
iarity with the Numpy library will be helpful, although it isn’t required. You don’t need
previous experience with machine learning or deep learning: this book covers from
scratch all the necessary basics. You don’t need an advanced mathematics background,
either—high school–level mathematics should suffice in order to follow along.
Roadmap
This book is structured in two parts. If you have no prior experience with machine
learning, I strongly recommend that you complete part 1 before approaching part 2.
We’ll start with simple examples, and as the book goes on, we’ll get increasingly close
to state-of-the-art techniques.
Part 1 is a high-level introduction to deep learning, providing context and defini-
tions, and explaining all the notions required to get started with machine learning
and neural networks:
Chapter 1 presents essential context and background knowledge around AI,
machine learning, and deep learning.
Chapter 2 introduces fundamental concepts necessary in order to approach
deep learning: tensors, tensor operations, gradient descent, and backpropaga-
tion. This chapter also features the book’s first example of a working neural
network.
Chapter 3 includes everything you need to get started with neural networks: an
introduction to Keras, our deep-learning framework of choice; a guide for set-
ting up your workstation; and three foundational code examples with detailed
explanations. By the end of this chapter, you’ll be able to train simple neural
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