1d ago

AI researchers revive visualizations from 2009 LeCun paper

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Roland Memisevic posted a 16-by-16 grid of filters from the 2009 paper Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps by Koray Kavukcuoglu, Marc'Aurelio Ranzato, Rob Fergus, and Yann LeCun. The images display grids of oriented stripes, curved waves, rings, and edges that illustrate continuous topographic organization of learned features. Sander Dieleman and Luca Ambrogioni identified the source paper and noted its prior influence on neuroscience research.

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@pfau @sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus We never heard from them again.

David PfauDavid Pfau@pfau

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus @ylecun Huh, wonder what those authors are up to these days.

6:45 PM · May 14, 2026 · 1.3K Views
9:12 PM · May 14, 2026 · 878 Views

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus Back when we thought deep net pre-training could be done with stacked auto-encoders trained with group sparsity regularization.

Sander DielemanSander Dieleman@sedielem

This one blew my mind back in the day! From "Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps" (2009) by @koraykv, @MarcRanzato, @rob_fergus and @ylecun

4:24 PM · May 14, 2026 · 82.2K Views
9:18 PM · May 14, 2026 · 10.5K Views

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus It does work. I mean, with stacks of pre-trained sparse convolutional auto-encoders, we could get to a good starting point from which to fine-tune supervised on tiny labelled datasets (like Caltech 101, that had 30 training samples per category) and get near-SOTA performance.

Sander DielemanSander Dieleman@sedielem

@ylecun @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus I mean... it would probably still work, just a bit tedious to do it 100 times 😂

9:20 PM · May 14, 2026 · 1.9K Views
2:01 PM · May 15, 2026 · 559 Views

This one blew my mind back in the day! From "Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps" (2009) by @koraykv, @MarcRanzato, @rob_fergus and @ylecun

Roland MemisevicRoland Memisevic@RolandMemisevic

Relics from the prehistoric era of AI

2:10 PM · May 14, 2026 · 395.4K Views
4:24 PM · May 14, 2026 · 82.2K Views

@ylecun @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus I mean... it would probably still work, just a bit tedious to do it 100 times 😂

Yann LeCunYann LeCun@ylecun

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus Back when we thought deep net pre-training could be done with stacked auto-encoders trained with group sparsity regularization.

9:18 PM · May 14, 2026 · 10.5K Views
9:20 PM · May 14, 2026 · 1.9K Views

I remember the days when a successful experiment was one that produced cool filters

Sander DielemanSander Dieleman@sedielem

This one blew my mind back in the day! From "Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps" (2009) by @koraykv, @MarcRanzato, @rob_fergus and @ylecun

4:24 PM · May 14, 2026 · 82.2K Views
5:51 PM · May 14, 2026 · 58.8K Views

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus @ylecun Huh, wonder what those authors are up to these days.

Sander DielemanSander Dieleman@sedielem

This one blew my mind back in the day! From "Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps" (2009) by @koraykv, @MarcRanzato, @rob_fergus and @ylecun

4:24 PM · May 14, 2026 · 82.2K Views
6:45 PM · May 14, 2026 · 1.3K Views

on the topic of favorite filters…

first emergence, mostly accidental

Taco CohenTaco Cohen@TacoCohen

I remember the days when a successful experiment was one that produced cool filters

5:51 PM · May 14, 2026 · 58.8K Views
3:33 AM · May 15, 2026 · 43.8K Views

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus @ylecun

Sander DielemanSander Dieleman@sedielem

This one blew my mind back in the day! From "Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps" (2009) by @koraykv, @MarcRanzato, @rob_fergus and @ylecun

4:24 PM · May 14, 2026 · 82.2K Views
7:45 PM · May 14, 2026 · 294 Views

@sedielem @koraykv @MarcRanzato @rob_fergus @ylecun Good old days! These words were also very influential in neuroscience. We kinda lost that direct connection

Sander DielemanSander Dieleman@sedielem

This one blew my mind back in the day! From "Learning Invariant Features through Topographic Filter Maps" (2009) by @koraykv, @MarcRanzato, @rob_fergus and @ylecun

4:24 PM · May 14, 2026 · 82.2K Views
4:43 PM · May 14, 2026 · 474 Views
AI researchers revive visualizations from 2009 LeCun paper · Digg