Temperature
Temperature is a setting (typically 0 to 1) that controls randomness in a model's output; lower values make responses more focused and deterministic, higher values make them more varied and creative.
Analogy
Like a dial between a careful accountant (low) and a freewheeling brainstormer (high).
Why it matters
Setting a low temperature keeps automated outputs like data extraction or classification consistent and reliable, while higher values suit idea generation.
In practice
Set temperature near 0 when extracting a phone number from a message so the model doesn't improvise.