What is Temperature?
A setting that controls how creative or deterministic AI outputs are.
Definition
Temperature is a parameter that controls the randomness of AI model outputs. A temperature of 0 makes the model deterministic (always choosing the most likely next token), while higher temperatures (0.7-1.0) introduce more randomness and creativity. Lower temperatures are better for factual tasks, higher temperatures for creative writing.
💡 Example
Asking GPT-4 to write a poem at temperature 0.9 produces more creative, varied results each time. The same prompt at temperature 0.1 produces nearly identical, predictable output. Most chat interfaces default to around 0.7.
Related concepts
A type of AI trained on massive text datasets to understand and generate human language.
The process of running a trained AI model to generate predictions or outputs.
A way for developers to programmatically access AI models in their own applications.
What is Temperature?
Temperature is a parameter that controls the randomness of AI model outputs. A temperature of 0 makes the model deterministic (always choosing the most likely next token), while higher temperatures (0.7-1.0) introduce more randomness and creativity. Lower temperatures are better for factual tasks, higher temperatures for creative writing.
How does Temperature work in practice?
Asking GPT-4 to write a poem at temperature 0.9 produces more creative, varied results each time. The same prompt at temperature 0.1 produces nearly identical, predictable output. Most chat interfaces default to around 0.7.