In plain words: Instead of sending every image through the same fixed stack of layers, this network lets each input pick its path through learned transformations, trained three ways. With the same computing budget, it beat fixed-path networks at classifying images, with branches specializing by image category.
Abstract · Deciding How to Decide: Dynamic Routing in Artificial Neural Networks
We propose and systematically evaluate three strategies for training dynamically-routed artificial neural networks: graphs of learned transformations through which different input signals may take different paths. Though some approaches have advantages over others, the resulting networks are often qualitatively similar. We find that, in dynamically-routed networks trained to classify images, layers and branches become specialized to process distinct categories of images. Additionally, given a fixed computational budget, dynamically-routed networks tend to perform better than comparable statically-routed networks.
Mason McGill, Pietro Perona
arXiv:1703.06217 · stat.ML, cs.CV, cs.LG, cs.NE · submitted Mar 17, 2017 · updated Sep 12, 2017
abstract · pdf · html · ICML 2017. Code at https://github.com/MasonMcGill/multipath-nn Video abstract at https://youtu.be/NHQsDaycwyQ