As a chemical engineer who started learning deep learning after learning regular old regression-based empirical modeling, my interpretation of deep learning is

As a chemical engineer who started learning deep learning after learning regular old regression-based empirical modeling, my interpretation of deep learning is that it's just high-dimensional non-linear interpolation. If what you're trying to predict can't be represented as some combination of your existing data, it breaks immediately. Data drives everything; all models are wrong, but some are useful. (George Box)