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Traditional Neural Networks (TNNS) - Simple Explanation What Are Traditional Neural Networks?

Traditional Neural Networks (TNNs) are feedforward networks composed of layers of neurons that process fixed-size data inputs to produce outputs without memory of previous inputs. They are effective for tasks like classification and regression, where the input and output sizes are constant. Key components include neurons, weights, biases, activation functions, and the training process involving forward propagation and backpropagation.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
3 views25 pages

Traditional Neural Networks (TNNS) - Simple Explanation What Are Traditional Neural Networks?

Traditional Neural Networks (TNNs) are feedforward networks composed of layers of neurons that process fixed-size data inputs to produce outputs without memory of previous inputs. They are effective for tasks like classification and regression, where the input and output sizes are constant. Key components include neurons, weights, biases, activation functions, and the training process involving forward propagation and backpropagation.

Uploaded by

shreeshas06
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Traditional Neural Networks (TNNs) — Simple Explanation

What are Traditional Neural Networks?

 Think of a traditional neural network as a series of layers of neurons


(nodes) connected together.

 It’s like a big “function” that takes some inputs, processes them
through layers, and gives an output.

 These networks are sometimes called feedforward neural


networks because the data moves only forward through the
network — from input layer, through hidden layers, to output layer.

Why do we use TNNs?

 They are great for problems where the input and output are fixed
size.

 Examples:

o Predicting house prices from a fixed number of features (size,


location, bedrooms)

o Classifying images where the input is a fixed-size image


vector, and the output is a category like “cat” or “dog”

o Recognizing handwritten digits (MNIST dataset)

How do TNNs work?

 Input Layer: Takes in the raw data (e.g., pixel values of an image,
or features of a house).

 Hidden Layers: Each neuron receives weighted sums of inputs,


applies a function (activation function), and passes the result to the
next layer.

 Output Layer: Produces the final result (like a class label or a


predicted number).

Key points:

 No memory or sequence: Unlike RNNs, traditional neural


networks don’t remember anything from previous inputs. Each input
is treated independently.
 Fixed size input/output: Both the input and output have to be
fixed size.

 Simple flow: Data flows straight from input to output without loops
or cycles.

Analogy:

 Imagine a pipeline where raw materials (input data) enter one end.

 The materials get processed step-by-step through stations (layers).

 At the end, you get the finished product (output).

Summary:

 Traditional Neural Networks are feedforward networks.

 They process fixed-size data with layers of neurons.

 They have no memory — treat each input independently.

 Great for classification, regression, and other simple tasks without


sequences.

Great! Let’s dive into the key components of Traditional Neural


Networks (TNNs) so you get a clear understanding of how they work
step-by-step.

Key Components of Traditional Neural Networks (TNNs)

1. Neurons (Nodes)

 The basic unit of a neural network.

 Each neuron receives inputs, processes them, and passes output to


the next layer.

 It’s inspired by a biological neuron but much simpler.

2. Weights
 Each connection between neurons has a weight — a number that
controls how important that input is.

 Think of weights like volume knobs: higher weight = stronger signal


passed on.

 Weights are learned during training to make the network better at


its task.

3. Bias

 A bias is like an additional constant input to the neuron.

 It helps the neuron adjust the output independently of the input.

 It allows the network to better fit the data by shifting activation.

4. Weighted Sum

 Each neuron calculates a weighted sum of its inputs plus bias.

z=w1x1+w2x2+...+wnxn+bz = w_1 x_1 + w_2 x_2 + ... + w_n x_n + b

where wiw_i = weights, xix_i = inputs, bb = bias.

5. Activation Function

 After the weighted sum, the neuron applies an activation function.

 This function introduces non-linearity, allowing the network to


learn complex patterns.
(Non-linearity means that the relationship between input and output is not a straight line. In
simple terms, the output does not change proportionally with the input. A common choice
is the ReLU function, defined as σ(x)=max⁡(0,x)σ(x)=max(0,x).

Imagine you want to classify apples and bananas based on their shape and color.

If we use a linear function, it can only separate them using a straight line.

But real-world data is often more complex (e.g., overlapping colors, different lighting).

By adding a non-linear activation function (like ReLU, Sigmoid, or Tanh), the network can
create curved decision boundaries to separate them correctly.)

 Common activation functions:

o ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit): Outputs 0 if input < 0, else


outputs input

o Sigmoid: Squashes input to a value between 0 and 1


o Tanh: Squashes input between -1 and 1

6. Layers

 Input Layer: Receives raw data.

 Hidden Layers: Process data by passing through neurons and


activation functions.

 Output Layer: Produces final prediction or classification.

7. Forward Propagation

 The process of moving input through the network layer by layer to


get an output.

 At each neuron: calculate weighted sum → apply activation → pass


output to next layer.

8. Loss Function

 Measures how far the network’s output is from the correct answer.

 Common loss functions:

o Mean Squared Error (MSE) for regression

o Cross-Entropy Loss for classification

[Input Data] → [Forward Pass] → [Prediction]

[Loss Function Calculates Error]

[Backpropagation: Who’s at fault?]

[Update Weights Slightly]

[Repeat for Next Batch of Data]

9. Training & Backpropagation


 The network learns by adjusting weights and biases to minimize the
loss.

 Backpropagation calculates how much each weight/bias


contributed to the error.

 Using an algorithm called Gradient Descent, weights are updated


in the direction that reduces error.

 This process repeats for many iterations (epochs) until the network
learns to predict well.

Summary of the Flow

1. Input data goes into the input layer.

2. Each neuron calculates a weighted sum plus bias.

3. Activation function transforms the value.

4. Output is passed to the next layer.

5. Final output is compared to true label using loss function.

6. Backpropagation updates weights/biases to reduce error.

7. Repeat until performance is good.

1. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) — Explained Simply

What are RNNs?

 Imagine you’re reading a story, one word at a time.

 To understand the current word, you need to remember what you


read before.

 RNNs work the same way — they are special types of neural
networks designed to process sequences of data step-by-step,
remembering previous information to understand the context.

Why do we need RNNs?

 Many real-world problems involve sequences, such as:

o Sentences (words come in order)


o Audio (sounds over time)

o Videos (frames in order)

 Traditional neural networks treat each input independently — they


don’t remember previous steps.

 RNNs are built to handle this by keeping a "memory" of what


happened before.

How do RNNs work?

 At each step (like each word), the RNN takes:

o The current input (current word, audio frame, etc.)

o The information from the previous step (the memory)

 It processes both together to produce:

o An output for the current step

o Updated memory to pass on to the next step

Types of RNN models based on input and output:

 Vector-to-Sequence

o Input: a fixed-size vector (a fixed amount of info)

o Output: a sequence of any length

o Example: Image captioning

 Input: a vector representing an image

 Output: a sentence describing the image (sequence of


words)

 Sequence-to-Vector

o Input: a sequence (like words in a sentence)

o Output: a fixed-size vector (summary or label)

o Example: Sentiment analysis

 Input: a movie review (sequence of words)

 Output: a single number/vector saying how positive or


negative the review is
 Sequence-to-Sequence

o Input: a sequence

o Output: another sequence

o Example: Language translation

 Input: a sentence in Spanish (sequence of words)

 Output: a sentence in English (sequence of words)

Summary:

 RNNs are neural networks designed to work with sequences.

 They have "memory" that carries info forward as they process one
step at a time.

 They come in different types depending on input-output forms:

o Vector-to-sequence

o Sequence-to-vector

o Sequence-to-sequence

Sure! Here’s a simple explanation of how an RNN works:

Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) — Simple Working

1. Purpose:
RNNs are designed to process sequences — like sentences, time
series, or any data where order matters.

2. Key Idea:
Unlike traditional neural nets, RNNs have a memory of what
happened before. They take the current input and remember
information from previous steps.

3. How it works step-by-step:

o At time step t, RNN takes the current input xtx_t (like the
current word in a sentence).

o It also takes the hidden state ht−1h_{t-1}, which is a


summary of all previous inputs.
o It combines xtx_t and ht−1h_{t-1} to produce a new hidden
state hth_t, which holds updated memory.

o This hth_t is used to make predictions (like the next word) or


passed on to the next time step.

4. Mathematically:

ht=activation(Wx⋅xt+Wh⋅ht−1+b)h_t = \text{activation}(W_x \cdot x_t +


W_h \cdot h_{t-1} + b)

o WxW_x and WhW_h are weights.

o bb is bias.

o Activation is usually a non-linear function like tanh or ReLU.

5. Output:
At each step, RNN can output a prediction based on the current
hidden state.

Why is this useful?

Because it keeps track of context — what happened before affects what


happens next. For example, in a sentence, the meaning of a word depends
on previous words.

Why Not Just Use a Normal Neural Network?

Because traditional neural networks (like feedforward NNs):

 Have no memory of previous inputs

 Treat each input as independent

 Can’t model context in sequences

RNNs, on the other hand:

 Have a “hidden state” 🧠 that remembers what came before

 Process data step by step, maintaining sequence order

🤔 So Why Don’t We Use RNNs All the Time?

Because they:

 Are slow (process input one step at a time)

 Struggle with long-term memory (forget things over time)


 Can suffer from vanishing or exploding gradients

That’s why we later got LSTMs and GRUs (better RNNs)


And now we mostly use Transformers (way better for long sequences)

Perfect, babe 😄 — let's lock this in without code, just clean, simple logic.

🔄 LSTM — Full Process Recap (No Code)

Imagine you feed in a sentence like:

“I love deep learning models”

You give this to the LSTM one word at a time, and at each step it:

🧩 Step-by-Step at Each Word (Time Step t):

1. Forget Gate

👋 “Should I forget anything from my memory?”

 It looks at the current word (x_t) and what it remembers from before
(h_{t-1}).

 It decides what to erase from its long-term memory (C_{t-1}).

✅ Example: It might decide to forget old info if it’s no longer relevant.

2. Input Gate

🆕 “Should I learn anything new from this word?”

 It decides which parts of the new input to actually keep and store.

 It builds candidate information (what could be stored), then filters


it.

✅ Example: If the word is "love", it might decide that's important emotion


info to keep.

3. Update the Memory (Cell State)

🧠 “Let me update what I remember.”

 Combines what it kept from the past with the new info it chose to
store.
✅ Result: The cell now has an updated, smarter memory of the sentence
so far.

4. Output Gate

📤 “What do I want to send out or pass forward?”

 It decides what to output (the hidden state h_t), which is also


passed to:

o the next word’s step

o the final prediction layer (if you're doing something like


translation or sentiment analysis)

✅ Example: This output is like a summary of what it knows so far.

🔁 This Repeats

It does this for each word, updating and remembering better as it goes.

🎯 Why It Works

 Can remember important stuff for a long time

 Can forget useless stuff when needed

 Balances memory, learning, and forgetting in every step

🧠 Memory Recap

Memory Type What It Does

Cell State C_t Long-term memory (main memory bank)

Hidden State Short-term memory (used for output &


h_t next step)

💡 Example Use-Cases

 Sentiment Analysis: “I don’t like this movie” → needs memory to


catch the “don’t”

 Translation: Keeping context across the whole sentence


 Time Series: Remembering trends in past data points

Great question! After the LSTM parses through the whole sentence, here’s
what happens next in a typical setup:

1. Final Hidden State / Output

 Once the LSTM has processed every word one by one, it ends up
with a final hidden state (h_t from the last time step).

 This hidden state is a summary — a compressed, learned


representation of the entire sentence’s meaning or context.

2. Use the Final Output for Task

What happens next depends on your task:

 Classification (e.g., sentiment analysis):


The final hidden state is passed to a fully connected layer (dense
layer) followed by a softmax or sigmoid activation.
→ This outputs probabilities for classes like “positive” or “negative”.

 Sequence generation (e.g., translation):


The hidden states from all time steps can be used in a decoder to
generate another sequence (like translating from English to French).
→ Here, LSTM acts as an encoder.

 Other tasks:
The output could be fed into other layers or models depending on
what you want to achieve.

3. Calculate Loss

 Compare the model’s output with the correct answer (ground


truth).

 Use a loss function (e.g., cross-entropy for classification) to


measure how wrong the model is.

4. Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT)

 The error is sent backwards through the LSTM layers across all
time steps.
 The model adjusts its weights and biases to reduce the loss —
basically “learning” from its mistakes.

5. Repeat

 This process happens over many sentences (training examples) for


many epochs.

 Over time, the LSTM gets better at understanding sequences and


producing accurate outputs.

Summary:

Step What Happens

Process full
Get final hidden state(s) summarizing input
sentence

Pass to next Use hidden state(s) for classification, prediction, or


layer generation

Calculate loss Compare predicted output to correct answer

Backpropagation Adjust weights to improve predictions

Repeat training Learn better with more data and iterations

Absolutely! Here’s a simple, step-by-step explanation of GRU (Gated


Recurrent Unit) — kind of like the LSTM explanation you liked, but easier
and more streamlined.

GRU Explained Step-by-Step (Simple & Clear)

What is a GRU?

 GRU is a type of recurrent neural network designed to handle


sequences (like sentences).

 It’s similar to LSTM but simpler — fewer gates, fewer calculations —


so it trains faster while still remembering important info.

Step 1: Input & Previous State

 At each time step (each word in a sentence), the GRU takes:


o The current input (e.g., a word vector).

o The hidden state from the previous time step (summary of all
past inputs).

Step 2: Calculate the Update Gate (z)

 The update gate decides how much of the past information to


keep.

 If update gate = 1 → keep all past info.

 If update gate = 0 → forget past info completely.

 Think of it like a volume knob controlling how much memory to carry


forward.

Step 3: Calculate the Reset Gate (r)

 The reset gate decides how much past info to forget when
processing the current input.

 If reset gate = 0 → ignore past state (start fresh).

 If reset gate = 1 → keep past state fully.

 This helps the GRU decide if the previous info is relevant for the
current step.

Step 4: Calculate Candidate Hidden State (ĥ)

 Using the current input and the reset gate-modified previous


state, the GRU calculates a candidate hidden state.

 This candidate contains new info from the current input mixed with
relevant past info.

Step 5: Calculate Final Hidden State (h)

 The update gate now decides how much of the candidate hidden
state (new info) and how much of the previous hidden state
(old info) to keep.

 Final hidden state is a blend of old and new info, controlled by the
update gate.
Step 6: Move to Next Time Step

 The final hidden state becomes the previous hidden state for the
next word.

 Repeat steps 1–5 for all words in the sequence.

Why GRU?

 It’s simpler than LSTM because it has two gates instead of three.

 Often just as effective, faster to train, fewer parameters.

 Great for sequence tasks where speed matters but you still want
good memory.

Simple Example: Predicting Sentiment of a Sentence

Say you want to know if “The movie was amazing” is positive or negative:

 Word 1: “The” → GRU starts with no memory.

 Word 2: “movie” → GRU updates memory with info about “movie.”

 Word 3: “was” → updates memory, possibly forgetting some


unimportant past info.

 Word 4: “amazing” → GRU gives this word a strong update (reset


and update gates adjust) because it’s very important.

 After the last word, the final hidden state summarizes the whole
sentence sentiment.

 Pass this to a classifier → output “Positive.”

Summary Table

Step What Happens

Input & previous


GRU receives current word and previous hidden state
state

Update gate (z) Decides how much past info to keep

Decides how much past info to forget while processing


Reset gate (r)
current input
Step What Happens

Candidate state
New info combined with reset past state
(ĥ)

Final hidden state


Mix of old and new info controlled by update gate
(h)

Move to next
Repeat for next input in sequence
word

What is a CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)?

 CNNs are designed to automatically detect important local


patterns (like edges, shapes) in data.

 They use a special operation called convolution — think of it like


sliding a small filter (or window) over the input to spot features.

 Commonly used in images, where the filter scans pixels to find


things like corners or textures.

 CNNs have layers that do:

o Convolution: extract local features

o Pooling: reduce size but keep important info

o Fully connected: classify or predict based on features

How CNNs work on sequence data (like text)?

Even though CNNs were made for images, they can be adapted for
sequences, like sentences or time series, by treating the input as a 1D
sequence instead of a 2D image.

CNNs in NLP — Example use case: Sentence classification

 Input: A sentence turned into word embeddings (each word


becomes a vector).

 CNN applies filters that slide over small groups of words (like 2-3
words at a time) — these are called n-grams.

 Filters detect important local patterns, like common phrases or


combinations of words.

 Pooling layer condenses these features.


 Fully connected layers then use these features to classify the
sentence (e.g., positive or negative sentiment).

Why use CNNs for sequences?

 CNNs are fast and parallelizable — unlike RNNs, they don’t have
to process word-by-word sequentially.

 Good at spotting local features and patterns.

 Less effective than RNNs or Transformers at capturing long-range


dependencies because CNN filters cover limited windows.

Summary:

Model Strength in Sequence Tasks Weakness

Detects local patterns, faster Struggles with long-term


CNN
training context

RNN/LSTM/ Captures sequence order and Slower to train,


GRU longer context sequential

Captures long-range
Transformer More compute needed
dependencies, parallel

So CNNs can be useful in NLP for certain tasks like sentence


classification, text categorization, or even named entity
recognition — wherever local patterns matter!

Sure! Here’s a simple, detailed explanation of how a CNN works for


image classification — from input to output:

1. Input: The Image

 The input is an image, for example, a 64x64 pixel RGB image.

 It can be thought of as a 3D array: height (64), width (64), and 3


color channels (Red, Green, Blue).

2. Convolutional Layer: Detecting Features


 The first step is to apply convolution filters (also called kernels)
over the image.

 A filter is a small matrix (e.g., 3x3 or 5x5) with learnable numbers.

 This filter slides across the image, performing element-wise


multiplication and summing up the results — this produces a
feature map.

What does this do?

 It detects simple patterns like edges, corners, or textures.

 Multiple filters detect different features simultaneously (e.g., vertical


edges, horizontal edges).

3. Activation Function (ReLU)

 After convolution, each value in the feature map is passed through


an activation function, usually ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit).

 ReLU changes all negative values to zero, adding non-linearity to the


model.

 This helps the network learn complex patterns beyond simple linear
combinations.

4. Pooling Layer: Reducing Dimensions

 Next, the CNN applies pooling (usually max pooling).

 This takes small regions (like 2x2) of the feature map and keeps
only the maximum value.

 Pooling reduces the spatial size of the feature maps, which:

o Decreases computation

o Helps the model focus on the most important features

o Adds a bit of translation invariance (helps recognize objects


even if shifted slightly)

5. Stacking Multiple Convolution + Pooling Layers

 CNNs typically stack several convolution + activation + pooling


layers.
 Early layers detect simple features (edges), deeper layers detect
complex features (shapes, textures, object parts).

 This hierarchical feature extraction lets CNNs learn very powerful


representations.

6. Flattening

 After several convolution and pooling layers, the 3D feature maps


are flattened into a 1D vector.

 This vector contains all the features extracted from the image, now
ready for classification.

7. Fully Connected (Dense) Layers

 This flattened vector is fed into one or more fully connected


layers.

 These layers learn to combine features to predict the image class.

 They behave like a traditional neural network, where each neuron is


connected to every neuron in the previous layer.

8. Output Layer

 The final layer is a fully connected layer with neurons equal to the
number of classes (e.g., 10 for CIFAR-10).

 It usually uses a softmax activation that converts raw scores into


probabilities for each class.

 The class with the highest probability is chosen as the prediction.

Summary flow:

Image → Convolution → ReLU → Pooling → (repeat) → Flatten →


Fully Connected Layers → Softmax → Class prediction

Quick example:

 Input: 64x64 RGB image of a cat

 Conv layer detects edges like ears and whiskers


 Next conv layers combine edges to detect cat face features

 Pooling layers reduce size, keep strongest signals

 Fully connected layers combine all features and say, “This looks like
a cat!” with 95% confidence.

Absolutely! Here's a simple, clear, step-by-step explanation of how


Transformers work for text sequence tasks like translation or
classification — from input to output, just like we did with CNNs.

🔄 What are Transformers?

Transformers are neural networks designed to handle sequences of


data (like sentences), without using recurrence (like RNNs). They
process all tokens in parallel, which makes them faster and better at
handling long sequences.

✅ Use Case Example: English to French Translation

(You type "I love you", it outputs "Je t’aime")

Step-by-Step Transformer Architecture:

1. Input Text → Tokenization

 Input sentence: "I love you"

 Break this into tokens: ["I", "love", "you"]

 Convert tokens into token IDs (numbers), e.g., [101, 2203, 2017]

 These are lookup keys into an embedding matrix

2. Word Embedding + Positional Encoding

❓Why?

 Neural nets need vectors, not words.

 But also, Transformers have no notion of order, so we inject


position info.
What happens?

 Each word ID gets mapped to a dense vector → word embedding

 Then we add a positional encoding to each word vector

o Like: word 1 → position 1, word 2 → position 2, etc.

o Original paper used sin/cos functions; other methods also


work

So now we have a sequence of vectors: each word + its position = richer


meaning.

3. Encoder Block (multiple stacked layers)

Each encoder block has two parts:

🔹 A. Multi-Head Self-Attention

 Key idea: each word looks at all other words and decides what's
important.

 Example: in "I love you", "love" might pay more attention to "you"
than "I".

 This creates contextualized embeddings — each word now


“knows” about its neighbors.

🔹 B. Feedforward Neural Network

 Each output vector from self-attention goes through a small MLP


(dense network).

 Adds non-linearity and transforms features.

✅ Each encoder layer has:

 Multi-head self-attention

 Feedforward net

 Add & Norm (residual connections + normalization)

✅ You stack multiple such layers (e.g., 6 or 12) to extract deeper features.

4. Decoder Block (during translation)

While training or inference, the target sentence (French) is also


tokenized and embedded just like input.
Each decoder layer has three parts:

🔹 A. Masked Self-Attention

 It can’t “peek” at future words.

 So if generating "Je t’aime", it only looks at previous words while


predicting next.

🔹 B. Encoder-Decoder Attention

 This layer connects input and output.

 It asks: “Which words in the English sentence are important to


generate the next French word?”

🔹 C. Feedforward Layer

 Just like in the encoder, to process each word's vector.

✅ Again, multiple decoder layers are stacked.

5. Final Output Prediction

 Decoder outputs a vector for each position (like the word “Je” or
“t’aime”).

 These go through:

o A Linear Layer (converts to vocab size)

o A Softmax Layer (turns into probabilities)

 The word with the highest probability at each step is the


predicted next word.

⏱️And then what?

 This prediction process happens step by step until it produces an


end-of-sentence token.

 Example:
Input: "I love you"
Output: "Je" → "t’" → "aime" → <eos>

🧠 Summary Flow:

Input Sentence → Token IDs → Word Embedding + Positional Encoding


→ [Encoder: Self-Attention + Feedforward (stacked layers)]

→ [Decoder: Masked Attention + Encoder-Decoder Attention +


Feedforward]

→ Linear + Softmax → Output Sentence (Word by Word)

🆚 Why are Transformers so good?

 No recurrence → Fast, parallel training

 Self-attention → Learns global context

 Scalable → Works for long sequences

 Backbone of GPT, BERT, T5, etc.

BEST YOUTUBE VIDEO : https://www.youtube.com/watch?


v=TQQlZhbC5ps&t=15s

Yesss let’s do it! 🙌


We’re taking Transformers knowledge and now diving into BERT — the
OG Transformer model that changed the NLP game!

🤖 What is BERT?

BERT = Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers


Published by Google in 2018, it’s like a smart reader that deeply
understands context in a sentence — both from the left and right.

Unlike older models that read left-to-right or right-to-left, BERT reads in


both directions at once. That’s the magic.

🧠 Core Idea

BERT is built only from the Encoder part of the Transformer


architecture.
No decoder like in translation models — because BERT is focused on
understanding, not generating.

✅ BERT’s Workflow (Step-by-Step)


1. Input Format

You feed in:

 A sentence or a pair of sentences

 Special tokens added:

o [CLS] at the start (used for classification tasks)

o [SEP] to separate sentences

Example:
👉 Input sentence:
[CLS] The cat sat on the mat [SEP]

2. Tokenization

BERT uses WordPiece tokenization — breaks down words into subword


units.

Example:

“unhappiness” → ["un", "##happiness"]

Why? To handle rare/unknown words better.

3. Embedding Layer

Each token is converted into a vector by combining:

 Token embedding (word meaning)

 Segment embedding (is it sentence A or B?)

 Positional encoding (position in sentence)

🔁 All these get added together and passed into the Transformer encoder.

4. Transformer Encoder Layers

You now have multiple layers (like 12 or 24) of Transformer Encoders.


Each layer has:

 Multi-head self-attention

 Feedforward layer

 Layer norm & residuals


BERT passes your input through this stack.
Each token’s vector keeps updating as it learns context from both sides
(bidirectional!).

5. Pretraining Tasks (before fine-tuning)

This is where BERT learned before being used for tasks.

(A) Masked Language Modeling (MLM)

 Randomly masks 15% of the input tokens.

 Model predicts the missing word using context from both sides.

Example:
The cat sat on the [MASK] → Predict: mat

(B) Next Sentence Prediction (NSP)

 Feed 2 sentences.

 Model predicts: Is sentence B the next sentence after A?

6. Fine-tuning for Tasks

Once pretrained, you plug BERT into tasks like:

 Text classification (Sentiment, Spam)

 Named Entity Recognition (NER)

 Question Answering (like SQuAD)

 Sentence similarity

 etc.

🔁 Just add a simple output layer (like Softmax), and fine-tune on your
specific data.

🎯 Example: Sentiment Classification

1. Input: [CLS] I love this movie so much [SEP]

2. Transformer processes it.

3. Final vector of [CLS] token goes into a Softmax layer to classify:


→ Positive / Negative / Neutral
🧩 Why BERT Was a Big Deal

 Bidirectional context: Older models read one direction; BERT


looks both ways.

 Pretrained on huge data → just fine-tune it. Saves time, compute,


and gives amazing performance.

 Sparked an entire family: RoBERTa, DistilBERT, ALBERT, etc.

TL;DR Summary

Ste
What Happens
p

1️⃣ Input gets tokenized & embedded

Goes through multi-layer Transformer


2️⃣
encoder

3️⃣ Learns bidirectional context

4️⃣ Pretrained on MLM + NSP

5️⃣ Fine-tuned on your task

Super strong performance with less



training

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