Softmax
✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.
softmax (sometimes called softargmax, normalized exponential function, and other things )
- takes a vector of numbers
- returns a vector of probabilities
- all in 0 .. 1
- that sum to 1.0
Note that it is not just normalization.
Nor is it only a way to bring out the strongest answer.
The exponent in its internals, plus the "will sum to 1.0 part" will mean things shift around in a non-linear way, so even relative probabilities already in in 0..1 and summing to 1.0 will change, e.g.
- softmax([1.0,0.5,0.1]) ~= 0.5, 0.3, 0.2,
- softmax([0.5, 0.3, 0.2]) ~= 0.4, 0.31, 0.28