What is a seed in TensorFlow? [duplicate]

Question

I'm a beginner in TensorFlow, and I came across a parameter called seed in most of the functions. Also, it comes as the only parameter in some functions such as tf.set_random_seed(seed). Is this term seed specific to tensorflow? I believe I've surfed the TensorFlow documentation enough but couldn't find a solid answer.

Answer 1

The term "seed" is an abbreviation of the standard term "random seed".

TensorFlow operators that produce random results accept an optional seed parameter. If you pass the same number to two instances of the same operator, they will produce the same sequence of results. If you not pass a number to such an operator, it will produce different results on each execution.