AI engineering glossary · Deep learning core

What is label smoothing?

Label smoothing: A regularisation trick that replaces hard 0/1 target labels with slightly softened ones, such as 0.9 for the true class and the remaining 0.1 spread over other classes. It discourages overconfident predictions and can improve calibration.

Level: intermediateTopic: Deep learning core

Label smoothing: an example

With 10 classes and smoothing 0.1, the target for the right class is about 0.91 and each wrong class gets 0.01.

Related terms

More Deep learning core terms

Where you learn it

Label smoothing is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.

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