Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

kyunghyuncho.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 116 posts

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#31

Post by jiggawatts »

1dom wrote: post #29
roger_ wrote: post #27

An aside: please use proper capitalization. With this article I found myself backtracking thinking I’d missed a word, which was very annoying. Not sure what the authors intention was with that decision but please reconsider.

I agree. I'm all for Graham's pyramid of disagreement: we should focus on the core argument, rather than superfluous things like tone, or character, or capitalisation. But this is too much for me personally. I just realised I consider the complete lack of capitalisation on a piece of public intellectual work to be obnoxious. Sorry, it's impractical, distracting and generates unnecessary cognitive load for everyone el…

It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially.

It's the new black turtleneck that everyone is wearing, but will swear upon their mother's life isn't because they're copying Steve Jobs.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#33

Post by LudwigNagasena »

stared wrote: post #21

There are many useful tricks - like cosine distance. In contrast, softmax has a very deep grounding in statistical physics - where it is called the Boltzmann distribution. In fact, this connection between statistical physics and machine learning was so fundamental that it was a key part of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Hopfield and Hinton.

Study of thermodynamics gave rise to many concepts in information theory and statistics, but I wouldn't say that there is any direct connection per se between thermodynamics and any field where statistics or information theory are applicable. And the reasoning behind the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was... quite innovative.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#35

Post by bowsamic »

jiggawatts wrote: post #31
1dom wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I'm all for Graham's pyramid of disagreement: we should focus on the core argument, rather than superfluous things like tone, or character, or capitalisation. But this is too much for me personally. I just realised I consider the complete lack of capitalisation on a piece of public intellectual work to be obnoxious. Sorry, it's impractical, distracting and generates unnecessary cognitive load for everyone el…

It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially. It's the new black turtleneck that everyone is wearing, but will swear upon their mother's life isn't because they're copying Steve Jobs.

Well at least it makes it easy to know who to avoid

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#36

Post by littlestymaar »

lelag wrote: post #32
incognito124 wrote: post #25

How to sample from a categorical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42596716 Note: I am the author

I'm happy to see you repaired your keyboard.

I think they mean they're the author of the post they link, not the author of the OP with his broken caps.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#37

Post by PhilippGille »

roger_ wrote: post #27

An aside: please use proper capitalization. With this article I found myself backtracking thinking I’d missed a word, which was very annoying. Not sure what the authors intention was with that decision but please reconsider.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/death-of-cap...

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#38

Post by alchemist1e9 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #31
1dom wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I'm all for Graham's pyramid of disagreement: we should focus on the core argument, rather than superfluous things like tone, or character, or capitalisation. But this is too much for me personally. I just realised I consider the complete lack of capitalisation on a piece of public intellectual work to be obnoxious. Sorry, it's impractical, distracting and generates unnecessary cognitive load for everyone el…

It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially. It's the new black turtleneck that everyone is wearing, but will swear upon their mother's life isn't because they're copying Steve Jobs.

> It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially.

I know this is true but does anyone understand why they do it? It is actually cognitively disruptive when reading content because many of us are trained to simultaneously proof read while reading.

So I also consider it a type of cognitive attack vector and it annoys me extremely as well.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#39

Post by meowface »

jiggawatts wrote: post #31
1dom wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I'm all for Graham's pyramid of disagreement: we should focus on the core argument, rather than superfluous things like tone, or character, or capitalisation. But this is too much for me personally. I just realised I consider the complete lack of capitalisation on a piece of public intellectual work to be obnoxious. Sorry, it's impractical, distracting and generates unnecessary cognitive load for everyone el…

It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially. It's the new black turtleneck that everyone is wearing, but will swear upon their mother's life isn't because they're copying Steve Jobs.

Twitter and all forms of instant messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Discord, and the older ones like AIM/MSN/ICQ) have normalized it for many years. Sam is just one of the few large company CEOs to tweet in the style other Twitter users usually use. He's adopting the native culture rather than setting a trend.

Sam still uses capitalization in all of his essays, as do most people (including young people). In essays, like this one, it's distracting without it. I predict in 10 years the vast majority of people will all-lowercase on places like Twitter but almost no one will do it for essays.

Post reply on HN