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Original · left

Loss (grief or deficit)

The physical misplacement of an item, financial deficit, or the grief following a death.

First in use: ancient / pre-modern
Duplicate · right

Loss function

A scalar penalty metric quantifying the distance or discrepancy between an algorithm's prediction and the actual ground-truth label.

First in use: the 1940s

Loss / Loss (grief or deficit) / Loss function

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Colour keyGrey · original meaningGreen · duplicate meaningAmber · contested (40–60%)How colours work

Grief vs. gradient descent.

Which meaning of Loss is the original, and which one is the duplicate riding on its name? Loss (grief or deficit) came first (ancient / pre-modern). Loss function arrived in the 1940s. The data below shows which one owns the word now.

Wikipedia pageviews since 2015

Loss (grief or deficit)Loss function
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Duplicate's share of attention

Green line = duplicate's % · above 60 it owns the word · below 40 the original does

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The case for each meaning

Sourced definitions, usage stats and quotes

Original · ancient / pre-modern

Loss (grief or deficit)

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Duplicate · the 1940s

Loss function

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More duplicated terms

AI & machine learning