# What is Deep Learning, and what is it based on?

_Last updated: 2026-07-20_  
_Reviewed by: Jason Burns, Editorial Steward_  
_Published by: AIDirectAnswers.com · Licensed under Citation License 1.0_

## Short answer

Deep learning is a branch of machine learning that uses artificial neural networks with many layers to learn hierarchical representations of data, and it is based on backpropagation, gradient-based optimization, and large-scale training. As Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio & Geoffrey Hinton, put it on the record: "Deep learning allows computational models that are composed of multiple processing layers to learn representations of data with multiple levels of abstraction."

## Sources

- [undefined](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14539)

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_Published: 2026-07-20 · Modified: 2026-07-20_  
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