fast.ai is a non-profit research group focused on

deep learning Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised. De ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

. It was founded in 2016 by Jeremy Howard and Rachel Thomas with the goal of democratizing deep learning. They do this by providing a massive open online course (MOOC) named "Practical Deep Learning for Coders," which has no other prerequisites except for knowledge of the programming language

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

Massive Open Online Course

The free MOOC "Practical Deep Learning for Coders" is available as recorded videos, initially taught by Howard and Thomas at the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...

. In contrast to other online learning platforms such as Coursera or Udemy, a certificate is not granted to those successfully finishing the course online. Only the students following the in-person classes can obtain a certificate from the University of San Francisco. The MOOC consists of two parts, each containing seven lessons. Topics include

image classification Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...

stochastic gradient descent Stochastic gradient descent (often abbreviated SGD) is an iterative method for optimizing an objective function with suitable smoothness properties (e.g. differentiable or subdifferentiable). It can be regarded as a stochastic approximation of ...

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...

(NLP), and various deep learning architectures such as

convolutional neural network In deep learning, a convolutional neural network (CNN, or ConvNet) is a class of artificial neural network (ANN), most commonly applied to analyze visual imagery. CNNs are also known as Shift Invariant or Space Invariant Artificial Neural Netwo ...

s (CNNs),

recursive neural network A recursive neural network is a kind of deep neural network created by applying the same set of weights recursively over a structured input, to produce a structured prediction over variable-size input structures, or a scalar prediction on it, by t ...

s (RNNs) and generative adversarial networks (GANs).

Applications and alumni

* In 2018, students of fast.ai participated in the Stanford’s DAWNBench challenge alongside big tech companies like

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

. While Google could obtain an edge in some challenges due to its highly specialized TPU chips, the CIFAR-10 challenge was won by the fast.ai students, programming the fastest and cheapest algorithms. * As a fast.ai student, alumna Sara Hooker created software to detect illegal deforestation. She later became a founding member of

Google AI Google AI is a division of Google dedicated to artificial intelligence. It was announced at Google I/O 2017 by CEO Sundar Pichai. Projects * Serving cloud-based TPUs (tensor processing units) in order to develop machine learning software. * De ...

Accra Accra (; tw, Nkran; dag, Ankara; gaa, Ga or ''Gaga'') is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

—the first AI research office in Africa.

Software

In the fall of 2018, fast.ai released v1.0 of their free open-source library for deep learning called fastai (without a period), sitting atop PyTorch.

Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform offers numerous integrated cloud-computing services, including compute, network, and storage. Products Past and present products under the Google Cloud platform include: Current * Google Cloud Datastore, a NoSQL databa ...

was the first to announce its support. This

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

framework is hosted on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...

and is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

References

External links

* {{Official website, www.fast.ai Artificial intelligence associations Computer science research organizations