Back to glossary

What is Long Short-Term Memory Networks?

What is Long Short-Term Memory Networks?

Long Short-Term Memory Network, often abbreviated as LSTM Network, is a specialized type of Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) that has been explicitly designed to eradicate the limitations of traditional RNNs, particularly in handling long-term dependencies. LSTM Networks, because of their unique architecture, have gained considerable popularity and relevance in various domains that require the analysis of data sequences, especially for tasks involving longer sequences, which makes them an optimal model for tasks like speech recognition, machine translation, sentiment analysis, and time series forecasting.

Highlighting Their Key Attributes:

  • Architecture: LSTM Networks have a chain-like structure, similar to traditional RNNs, but their repeating module has a different structure. Unlike a typical RNN, which has a single neural network layer, an LSTM Network involves four, interacting in a very specialized manner.

  • Ability to forget: LSTM's unique aspect is its capacity to forget irrelevant parts or remember important sections of the input data via units known as "gates." These gates are functioning based on the sigmoid activation function, resulting in unit values between 0 (completely forget) to 1 (completely remember).

  • Chain of memory cells: Memory cells run across all LSTM nodes, which enables carrying memory or state from one node to the other in the network.

  • Inclusion of short and long-term memories: As its name implicates, this network remembers both short and long-term dependencies in a sequence.

Implementation of Long Short-Term Memory Networks

Implementing LSTM Networks necessitates a combination of careful planning, analysis, and optimization. It's crucial to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the task requirements and the data at hand, which includes understanding the sequence length, complexity, and temporal dependencies in the data. To choose and adjust the suitable LSTM variant and optimize its hyperparameters accordingly is also a pivot step in LSTM Networks implementation.

The correct application and effective implementation of LSTM Networks can result in high-performance models that are capable of capturing complex patterns and relationships in sequence data, thereby providing significant value in a range of practical applications. Careful monitoring and troubleshooting during the training process can ensure the successful implementation of LSTM Networks.

Artificial Intelligence Master Class

Exponential Opportunities. Existential Risks. Master the AI-Driven Future.

APPLY NOW

Advantages of Long Short-Term Memory Networks

The LSTM Networks possess various inherent advantages that include:

  • Ability to handle long-term dependencies: In contrast to the conventional RNNs, LSTMs are competent to learn and remember long-term dependencies very well, which is highly beneficial for various tasks such as machine translation and speech recognition that require the analysis of longer sequences.

  • Flexibility: They are highly flexible due to their ability to not only remember long-term dependencies but also forget irrelevant parts of the input data.

  • Minimal vanishing or exploding gradient issue: LSTM Networks hardly suffer from vanishing or exploding gradient issues, which often plagues general RNNs, making them efficient in learning from huge amounts of data.

Disadvantages of Long Short-Term Memory Networks

Despite their advantages and capabilities, LSTM Networks also have certain limitations:

  • Computationally heavy: With complex structure and multiple layers, LSTM Networks are computationally heavy, which make them resource-intensive and slower to train.

  • Increased complexity: The increased complexity makes them harder to implement and optimize.

  • Risk of overfitting: LSTM Networks are highly susceptible to overfitting, especially when the network is deep with lots of parameters.

Take Action

Download Brochure

What’s in this brochure:
  • Course overview
  • Learning journey
  • Learning methodology
  • Faculty
  • Panel members
  • Benefits of the program to you and your organization
  • Admissions
  • Schedule and tuition
  • Location and logistics

Contact Us

I have a specific question.

Attend an Info Session

I would like to hear more about the program and ask questions during a live Zoom session

Sign me up!

Yes! I am excited to join.

Download Brochure