ASR

What does ASR stand for?

ASR stands for automatic speech recognition. It refers to the ability of machines to understand and process natural speech. ASR systems are used in voice assistants, chatbots, machine translation, and more.

CNN

What does CNN stand for?

In the field of artificial intelligence, CNN stands for convolutional neural network. It is a type of deep neural network often used for computer vision tasks.

Image via superdatascience.com

Due to the effectiveness of CNNs, they have numerous applications in facial recognition, medical image analysis, and natural language processing tasks. This beginner’s guide goes as far to say that “CNNs are the reason why deep learning is famous.” A variation, DCNN, stands for deep convolutional neural network, which is a CNN with more layers. However, there is no standard number of layers that distinguishes CNNs from DCNNs. Therefore the two are sometimes used interchangeably.

CSV

What does CSV stand for?

CSV stands for comma-separated values. It is a file format often used for AI training data. As the name suggests, CSV files use commas to separate values in the data.

DL

What does DL stand for?

DL stands for deep learning and refers to machine learning tasks that use neural networks containing multiple layers. At the same time, increasing the number of layers requires more computer processing power and usually a longer training time for the model.

FKP

What does FKP stand for?

In computer vision, FKP* stands for facial keypoint(s). FKPs are commonly plotted around the nose, eyes, and mouth, to create a facial signature unique for each individual.

Moreover, facial keypoint annotation, also known as landmark annotation, is used to create training data for facial recognition models.

*alternate definition: in biometrics, FKP stands for finger-knuckle-print. There are some machine learning approaches used to create finger-knuckle-print identification systems.

GAN

What does GAN stand for?

GAN stands for generative adversarial network. In 2014, the idea was proposed in the paper Generative Adversarial Nets and has made amazing breakthroughs since. A GAN is a neural network that can be used to generate new and unique content. Recently, it’s been used to generate incredibly realistic human face images.

LSTM

What does LSTM stand for?

Image via colah.github.io

LSTM stands for long short-term memory and is a variant of recurrent neural networks (see definition near the bottom of this list). Basically, the strength of LSTMs is their ability to remember information for a long period of time and apply it to the present task. A good explanation of LSTMs can be found in this beginner’s guide.

ML

What does ML stand for?

In regards to artificial intelligence (AI), ML stands for machine learning. While AI and ML are often used interchangeably, there are some differences between the two phrases. This article provides a great explanation of the differences between AI, ML, and DL.

MNIST

What does MNIST stand for?

MNIST stands for the Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (database). The MNIST database is one of the most famous benchmark datasets in machine learning. Due to its usability and relatively small size, it is often used to compare the performance of various algorithms. Furthermore, it has inspired the creation of many more datasets in the same format.

NER

What does NER stand for?

NER stands for named entity recognition, which is an important process in numerous natural language processing (NLP) models. Named entities refer to proper names within text, usually people, places, or organizations. By identifying and tagging these entities, you can use the data to teach the algorithm information about those entities and how to spot new named entities in the future.

NLP

What does NLP stand for?

As mentioned above, NLP stands for natural language processing and is a large field of study within machine learning. It is the study of natural human language and how to create machines that fully understand that language. Some of the current applications of NLP in the real world include chatbots, voice assistants, and machine translation.

OCR

What does OCR stand for?

OCR stands for optical character recognition, which is the process of identifying written or printed characters.

After being identified, those characters are then converted into digital data. OCR is often used for the preservation of written text documents by identifying the characters and converting the text into PDFs.

PFE

What does PFE stand for?

PFE stands for probabilistic facial embeddings, which is a method for facial recognition tasks in unconstrained settings.

Image via groundai.com

Unlike deterministic facial embeddings, PFEs convert each face image into a distribution, in order to account for uncertainty. For a deeper understanding of PFEs and facial recognition, please see these 5 essential papers on facial recognition.

RNN

What does RNN stand for?

RNN stands for recurrent neural network and is a type of neural network which has loops. Its structure is designed to allow previously processed information to affect how the system interprets new information. A more detailed introduction to RNNs can be found here.