neural network
Pluralneural networks
- 1A computer system, real or simulated in software, designed to imitate the brain's ability to learn how to assess imprecise data.
The bank trained a neural network to flag transactions that looked like fraud.
Early neural networks struggled with messy handwriting that newer systems read with ease.
Note
Layers of simple units, loosely modeled on neurons, do the work, joined by connections whose weights are tuned during training until the outputs match known examples. That tuning is what the learning amounts to: the system finds its own rules in the data instead of being given them. Hence the usual verb, train, and the caution that the likeness to a brain is loose.
- 2Any network of neurons and related cells that work together to serve a common purpose.
Damage to the neural networks that control speech can leave a patient unable to find words.
Researchers mapped the neural network that lets the sea slug pull back its gill when touched.
Note
Here the phrase is literal: living neurons and their supporting cells, wired into a circuit that serves one task, such as speech or a reflex. The computing sense borrowed the image from this one, so where both could be meant, writers add biological or artificial to make clear which kind of network is in play.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of neural network apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.