Temperature Playground
"Temperature" is a setting that controls how predictable or creative AI responses are. See the same prompt produce wildly different outputs.
What is Temperature?
Temperature is a parameter you can adjust when using AI models through their API, or sometimes in advanced settings of AI tools. It controls the "randomness" of the model's word choices.
Low Temperature (0.0 - 0.3)
AI almost always picks the highest-probability word. Outputs are predictable, consistent, and "safe." The same prompt will give nearly identical results every time.
High Temperature (0.8 - 1.0+)
AI is more willing to pick lower-probability words. Outputs become creative, surprising, and sometimes nonsensical. Each generation is unique.
Where to find it: In ChatGPT's API, it's a parameter called temperature. Claude's API uses the same name. Some chat interfaces like OpenAI Playground expose this setting directly. Consumer apps like ChatGPT.com typically use a fixed temperature optimized for general use.
The Prompt
"Write a two-sentence story about a robot discovering something unexpected."
Click "Generate Response" to see how temperature affects the output...
Response History
No responses yet...
Low (0.0 - 0.3)
AI picks the highest-probability word every time. Outputs are predictable, consistent, and "safe."
Medium (0.4 - 0.7)
Balanced randomness. AI occasionally picks lower-probability words. Natural-sounding and varied.
High (0.8 - 1.0)
AI is more willing to pick unlikely words. Outputs become creative, surprising, sometimes wild.
🔬 How Temperature Actually Works (Technical)
Remember from the Token Visualizer that AI calculates probability scores for every possible next word? Temperature modifies those scores using a mathematical formula before picking.
Original probabilities: "walked" (65%), "ran" (20%), "teleported" (0.01%)
→ Temp 0.1: "walked" (99.5%), "ran" (0.5%), "teleported" (~0%)
→ Temp 0.7: "walked" (72%), "ran" (26%), "teleported" (0.5%)
→ Temp 1.2: "walked" (48%), "ran" (35%), "teleported" (8%)
The Math: Probabilities are passed through a softmax function divided by temperature. Lower temperature makes the distribution "sharper" (winner takes all). Higher temperature makes it "flatter" (more democratic).
Beyond 1.0: Some APIs allow temperature above 1.0 (up to 2.0). This makes outputs increasingly chaotic and can produce grammatical errors or nonsense. Useful for pure creative exploration, not practical tasks.
💡 Practical Tips
When to Lower Temperature
- • Writing code (consistency matters)
- • Extracting data from documents
- • Answering factual questions
- • Following strict formatting rules
- • When you want reproducible results
When to Raise Temperature
- • Brainstorming many different ideas
- • Writing creative fiction or poetry
- • Generating marketing tagline options
- • When "boring" outputs aren't working
- • Breaking out of clichéd responses