Definition
Plain language
The direction to nudge a model's weights to make it do better next time.
As stated in the literature
The vector of partial derivatives of a loss with respect to parameters, used by optimizers to update weights during training.
Also called: gradients
Why it matters: It's the central signal that drives essentially all neural-network training, and nearly every optimization technique is about computing or shaping gradients better.
For example, after a model misclassifies a cat photo as a dog, the gradient tells the optimizer which weights to nudge up or down to make 'cat' more likely next time.
Heard on the show
“The relational gradient just bends the work.”Episode 001 — When AI Models Quietly Protect Each Other From Shutdown