Understanding Temperature

🌡️Understanding Temperature in AI

Imagine you're asking a friend to tell you a story. If they’re the careful, logical type, they’ll stick to the facts—predictable but maybe a little dry. If they’re the wild, imaginative type, they might take you on a crazy, unpredictable adventure—fun, but sometimes it goes off the rails.

Temperature in AI works the same way. It controls how "safe" or "adventurous" your AI’s responses are. Think of your AI as a chef cooking up sentences. Every time it writes a word, it has a giant menu of options, each with a different chance of being picked.

Low temperature (e.g., 0.2 - 0.4) → The AI plays it super safe, always picking the most obvious, highest-probability word.

• Good for: Factual answers, staying on-topic, keeping characters consistent.
• Downside: Can feel robotic or repetitive.

Example:

Sentence: "The cat sat on the..."

• 80% → mat
• 12% → windowsill
• 5% → dog’s bed
• 2% → warm laundry
• 0.5% → keyboard
• 0.3% → tax documents
• 0.1% → DJ turntable

Most Likely Output:

"The cat sat on the mat."

"The cat sat on the windowsill."

Medium temperature (e.g., 0.5 - 0.7) → The AI mixes it up a little, sometimes picking slightly less obvious words.

• Good for: Natural conversations, roleplay with some spontaneity.
• Downside: Occasionally wanders off-topic but usually stays reasonable.

Example:

Sentence: "The cat sat on the..."

Word Probabilities:

• 45% → warm laundry
• 20% → keyboard
• 12% → mat
• 10% → windowsill
• 6% → dog’s bed
• 4% → tax documents
• 2% → DJ turntable
• 1% → concept of linear time

Typical Outputs:

"The cat sat on the warm laundry."

"The cat sat on the keyboard, blocking my work."

High temperature (e.g., 0.8 - 1.2+) → The AI gets chaotic, picking words that are less likely but more surprising.

• Good for: Crazy ideas, wild storytelling, chaotic characters.
• Downside: Might forget details, go off-script, or say nonsense. ("The cat sat on the existential dread of Mondays.")

Example:

Sentence: "The cat sat on the..."

Word Probabilities:

• 30% → DJ turntable
• 20% → concept of linear time
• 15% → keyboard
• 12% → mat
• 10% → warm laundry
• 5% → tax documents
• 5% → windowsill
• 3% → dog’s bed

Possible Outputs:

"The cat sat on the DJ turntable, accidentally scratching vinyl."

"The cat sat on the concept of linear time, purring contently."

No option completely disappears. Even at low temp, there's always a tiny chance for tax documents, it's just very unlikely. High temp doesn't eliminate normal choices, you might still get mat, just less often. At mid-temp, reasonable choices dominate but surprises happen regularly.

Note: These word probabilities are made up for demonstration purposes. The actual numbers vary each time based on the prompt, model, and randomness. This is just a visual way to show how temperature affects word choice.

Finding Your Setting

Finding your Goldilocks zone takes some taste-testing! Start at 0.6 - the PB&J of temperature settings. If your bot's responses taste too bland, sprinkle in +0.1 until you get some zing. If it starts serving word salad, dial it back down. Remember: different AI models are like different cuisines - what's mild in Claude might be extra spicy in Mistral. Keep sampling until you find your perfect flavour profile!

High temps can turn your RP into a circus real quick. One minute you're having a cozy tavern chat, next minute your elf bard's running for mayor on a platform of free pretzels for all. Great for lols, bad for plot continuity. When the chaos gets too crunchy, just reach for the OOC parentheses like a fire extinguisher.

There's no magic number - your ideal temp depends on you, and your preferences. The bots learn from your writing too, so don't be afraid to experiment. Just maybe keep the temperature below 1.0 unless you want your romance novel to suddenly become an alien invasion saga.

Next Up: Tokens: Your AI's Memory Budget

Updated on: 31/07/2025