Linear models

Linear models are an essential way to understand the mechanics of ANNs. Linear regression is used to both predict a continuous variable and also, in the case of logistic regression for classification, to predict a class. Neural networks are extremely useful for multi-class classification, since their architecture can be naturally adapted to multiple inputs and outputs.

Linear regression in PyTorch

Let's see how PyTorch implements a simple linear network. We could use autograd and backward to manually iterate through gradient descent. This unnecessarily low-level approach encumbers us with a lot of code that will be difficult to maintain, understand, and upgrade. Fortunately, PyTorch has a very straightforward...