This is a step-by-step introduction to deep learning using the PyTorch framework. PyTorch is a great entry point into deep learning and if you have some knowledge of Python then you will find PyTorch an intuitive, productive, and enlightening experience. The ability to rapidly prototype experiments and test ideas is a core strength of PyTorch. Together with the possibility of being able to turn experiments into productive, deployable resources, the learning curve challenge is abundantly rewarded.
PyTorch is a relatively easy and fun way to understand deep learning concepts. You may be surprised at how few lines of code it takes to solve common problems of classification, such as hand-writing recognition and image classification. Having said that PyTorch is easy cannot override the fact that deep learning is, in many ways, hard. It involves some complicated math and some intractable logical conundrums. This should not, however, distract from the fun and useful part of this enterprise. There is no doubt machine learning can provide deep insights and solve important problems in the world around us but to get there can take some work.
This book is an attempt, not to gloss over important ideas, but to explain them in a way that is jargon free and succinct. If the idea of solving complicated differential equations makes you break out in a cold sweat, you are not alone. This might be related to some high school trauma of a bad-tempered math teacher furiously demanding you cite Euler's formula or the trigonometric identities. This is a problem because math itself should be fun, and insight arises not from the laborious memorizing of formulas but through understanding relationships and foundational concepts.
Another thing that can make deep learning appear difficult is that it has a diverse and dynamic frontier of research. This may be confusing for the novice because it does not present an obvious entry point. If you understand some principles and want to test your ideas, it can be a bewildering task to find a suitable set of tools. The combinations of development language, framework, deployment architecture, and so on, present a non-trivial decision process.
The science of machine learning has matured to the point that a set of general purpose algorithms for solving problems such has classification and regression have emerged. Subsequently, several frameworks have been created to harness the power of these algorithms and use them for general problem solving. This means that the entry point is at such a level that these technologies are now in the hands of the non-computer science professional. Experts in a diverse array of domains can now use these ideas to advance their endeavors. By the end of this book, and with a little dedication, you will be able to build and deploy useful deep learning models to help solve the problems you are interested in.
In this chapter, we will discuss the following topics:
- What is PyTorch?
- Installing PyTorch
- Basic operations
- Loading data
