Temperature
Expanded definition
At decoding time, logits are divided by temperature before softmax. Temperature near 0 concentrates mass on the top token. Higher values flatten the distribution and increase variety, which can help brainstorming and hurt extraction, JSON, or tool arguments. Many APIs also expose top-p or top-k; combining high temperature with wide nucleus sampling compounds randomness. Tune temperature on a held-out task set, not by feel.
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Temperature FAQ
What is Temperature?
Temperature scales how randomly a model samples the next token: lower is more deterministic, higher explores more.
How is Temperature used in AI systems?
At decoding time, logits are divided by temperature before softmax. Temperature near 0 concentrates mass on the top token. Higher values flatten the distribution and increase variety, which can help brainstorming and hurt extraction, JSON, or tool arguments. Many APIs also expose top-p or top-k; combining high temperature with wide nucleus sampling compounds randomness.
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