Dropout and pruning are both techniques used in neural networks to improve generalization, reduce

overfitting, and enhance the model's efficiency. However, they operate in slightly different ways and
serve different purposes:

Dropout:

Dropout is a regularization technique that is commonly used during the training phase of a neural
network. It involves randomly "dropping out" a fraction of neurons or units during each training
iteration. This means that during each iteration, a certain percentage of neurons are ignored or set to
zero with a probability of p (dropout rate). The main idea behind dropout is to prevent individual
neurons from becoming overly reliant on specific input features or co-adapting with other neurons, thus
promoting more robust and generalized learning.

Key characteristics of dropout:

During Training Only: Dropout is applied only during the training phase and is not used during inference
or testing.

Random Dropout: Neurons are dropped out stochastically during each training iteration, helping to
create an ensemble of smaller sub-networks.

Regularization: Dropout acts as a form of regularization, preventing overfitting by reducing the risk of
the network memorizing the training data.

No Explicit Pruning: Dropout does not involve removing connections or neurons from the network; it
simply masks them during training.

Pruning:

Pruning, on the other hand, is a technique used to reduce the complexity of a trained neural network by
removing certain connections, neurons, or filters. Pruning can be performed either during training or as
a post-training process. The goal of pruning is to create a more compact network that retains or even
improves its performance while reducing computational resources, memory usage, and inference time.

Key characteristics of pruning:

Reducing Network Size: Pruning involves actually removing certain weights, neurons, or filters from the
network, resulting in a smaller model.

Pre- or Post-Training: Pruning can be done during training (iterative pruning) or as a separate step after
the network has been trained.

Trade-off between Size and Performance: Pruning aims to strike a balance between reducing model size
and maintaining acceptable performance. The challenge is to prune in a way that minimizes the impact
on accuracy.

Structured and Unstructured Pruning: Pruning can be done in a structured manner (e.g., removing entire
layers or filters) or unstructured (e.g., removing individual weights).

In summary, dropout is primarily a training-time technique that adds noise to the network's activations
to prevent overfitting, while pruning is a technique that modifies the structure of the network by
removing components to make it more efficient. Both techniques can be used together to improve the
overall performance and efficiency of neural networks.