The universal approximation power of finite-width deep ReLU networks

Abstract: We show that finite-width deep ReLU neural networks yield rate-distortion optimal approximation (B\"olcskei et al., 2018) of polynomials, windowed sinusoidal functions, one-dimensional oscillatory textures, and the Weierstrass function, a fractal function which is continuous but nowhere differentiable. Together with their recently established universal approximation property of affine function systems (B\"olcskei et al., 2018), this shows that deep neural networks approximate vastly different signal structures generated by the affine group, the Weyl-Heisenberg group, or through warping, and even certain fractals, all with approximation error decaying exponentially in the number of neurons. We also prove that in the approximation of sufficiently smooth functions finite-width deep networks require strictly smaller connectivity than finite-depth wide networks.