Perspective from Group Theory

Why does Deep Learning work? What representations does it capture? How do higher-order representations emerge? We study these questions from the perspective of group theory, thereby opening a new approach towards a theory of Deep learning. One factor behind the recent resurgence of the subject is a key algorithmic step called pretraining: first search for a good generative model for the input samples, and repeat the process one layer at a time. We show deeper implications of this simple principle, by establishing a connection with the interplay of orbits and stabilizers of group actions. Although the neural networks themselves may not form groups, we show the existence of shadow groups whose elements serve as close approximations. Over the shadow groups, the pretraining step, originally introduced as a mechanism to better initialize a network, becomes equivalent to a search for features with minimal orbits. Intuitively, these features are in a way the simplest. Which explains why a deep learning network learns simple features first. Next, we show how the same principle, when repeated in the deeper layers, can capture higher order representations, and why representation complexity increases as the layers get deeper.