samples

Definition

Individual items drawn from a distribution or making up a dataset. Two senses dominate: one training example among many, and one output produced by a generative model, the latter being what "sampling" yields. Statistics sometimes uses "a sample" for the whole collection rather than a single draw, so read the surrounding sentence before assuming cardinality. Sample efficiency, correspondingly, means how much performance you get per training example.

Explainers using this term

• Benchmark Contamination — How to Doubt a High ScoreRethinking Benchmark and Contamination for Language Models with Rephrased Samples