What is temperature — CCA-F Exam Prep

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L1.10|What is temperature
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Mystery
Two terminal windows side by side showing the same prompt: 'What is the capital of France?' Left terminal (labeled 'Temperature: 0'): 'The capital of France is Paris.' Right terminal (labeled 'Temperature: 1'): 'Ah, Paris! The City of Lights, where the Seine whispers secrets to lovers and the croissants achieve a level of perfection that...' Same prompt, wildly different output.

Same prompt. Same model. Different temperature.

At 0: 'The capital of France is Paris.' Every time. Word for word. Identical output, identical tone, zero variation.

At 1: 'Ah, Paris! The city of lights, where the Seine whispers secrets...' -- creative, unpredictable, occasionally wrong. Run it again and you get a completely different response.

Temperature is the chaos dial. It controls how much randomness the model uses when picking the next word.