The strict referee — temperature.
Show the same shot twice and you might get two different calls. A single dial — temperature — decides how often that happens.
From Lesson 1, the model never really sees one certain answer. It sees the odds: a spread of possible calls, each with a probability. But it has to commit to just one. How it picks is the question this lesson answers.
It picks by drawing from those odds, and a setting called temperature controls the draw. Turn temperature down and the model almost always takes the single most likely call — so it is steady and repeatable. Turn it up and the less-likely calls get a real chance — so the answers vary and surprise.
Think of a strict referee who calls everything by the book: the same shot earns the same verdict, every single time. A more relaxed referee might see that same incident and rule differently on a different day. Temperature is the dial between those two referees.
Low temperature when you want consistency — a verdict, a number, a fixed format. High temperature when you want range — ideas, phrasings, variety. Same model, same shot; the dial decides how adventurous the answer is.
Set the temperature, then review the same shot a few times. Low and steady, or high and surprising — watch the calls.
One setting on the call.
Temperature is a single argument. Low for answers you want to be the same every time; high when you want the model to range around.
The dial between steady and surprising.
The model turns a shot into odds. Temperature reshapes those odds before a call is drawn: low, and the top one towers over the rest — the strict referee, the same verdict each time; high, and the odds flatten so the long shots start landing — varied, fresher, less predictable.
It changes how the answer is chosen — not how much the model knows, and not how confident it is: the underlying scores are identical either way. Turn it down for consistency and format; turn it up for range and ideas — and remember that more variety is not the same as more correct.