Deep Learning and Unsupervised Feature Learning

In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in algorithms that learn feature hierarchies from unlabeled data. Deep learning methods such as deep belief networks, sparse coding-based methods, convolutional networks, and deep Boltzmann machines, have shown promise and have already been successfully applied to a variety of tasks in computer vision, audio processing, natural language processing, information retrieval, and robotics.


In this workshop, we will bring together researchers who are interested in deep learning and unsupervised feature learning, review the recent technical progress, discuss the challenges, and identify promising future research directions. Through invited talks, panel discussions and presentations by attendees we will attempt to address some of the most important topics in deep learning today. We will discuss whether and why hierarchical systems are beneficial, what principles should guide the design of objective functions used to train these models, what are the advantages and disadvantages of bottom-up versus top-down approaches, how to design scalable systems, and how deep models can relate to biological systems. Finally, we will try to identify some of the major milestones and goals we would like to achieve during the next 5 or 10 years of research in deep learning.