We are fast approaching the end of our class, and one of the most important concepts we will discuss during the last week is “artificial neural networks.” To get a taste for what artificial neural networks – or deep learning, as it is often referred to – are and how they can help us uncover the most complicated patterns in data, we will have to take an audio trip to the rainforests of the Congo Basin of Central Africa.
Please listen to the following episode of Planet Money – a podcast produced by NPR – and answer the following questions.
- How did the researchers count the number of elephants before using machine learning? What was the issue with their approach?
- Why is it infeasible to analyze the forest recordings’ manually?
