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Equation 11 · Part 2 · A History of Small and On-Device AI

subscript

ziz_i
subscript

What this part means

The lower label selects a particular version, component, or indexed member of the quantity. For example, x₀ and xₜ can be values at different positions.

Its job in the formula

A subscript distinguishes a version, component, step, or member of a quantity. It does not automatically mean multiplication.

The passage around this formula

where ziz_i are the teacher’s pre-softmax logits. “Using a higher value for T produces a softer probability distribution over classes” [ 4 ] , and it is precisely that softness — the relative probabilities the teacher assigns to the wrong answers, not only the single correct label — that carries information a hard label discards: how confidently a teacher model preferred one wrong answer over another says far more about the shape of its decision boundary than one correct label does. The paper states the mechanism directly: “Knowledge is transferred to the distilled model by training it on a transfer set and using a soft target distribution for each case in the transfer set that is produced by…

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Learn the underlying idea

A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.

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Sources cited in the surrounding passage

These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.