CODEWITHSUNDEEP
machine-learningdeep-learning
Rajat
Rajat

Reputation: 687

What does Non-Linearity of Deep Neural Networks means?

When we say "non-linearity of deep neural networks", what do we actually mean by the term "non-linearity" in this context ?

Also, the purpose of the activation function is to introduce non-linearity into the network. What does this non-linearity means ? (I am new to Deep learning.)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2366

Answers (1)

martin
martin

Reputation: 311

non-linear means that the output cannot be reproduced from a linear combination of the inputs (which is not the same as output that renders to a straight line--the word for this is affine).

another way to think of it: without a non-linear activation function in the network, a NN, no matter how many layers it had, would behave just like a single-layer perceptron, because summing these layers would give you just another linear function (see definition just above).

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Upvotes: 5

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