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Equation 5 · Shrink It, Train It Small, or Search for It: The Main Strategies for Small Models, Compared

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TT

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the temperature that softens the distribution. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.

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TT

Symbol T

the temperature that softens the distribution.

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where ztz_t and zsz_s are the teacher’s and student’s output logits, σ\sigma a softmax, T a temperature that softens the distribution, and y the ground-truth label. The second term is the entire point of the method: it transfers the relative probability the teacher assigns to every wrong answer, not just which answer was right, a far richer training signal per example than a raw label alone provides. That is the rationale, stated plainly by the paper that introduced it.

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