#computing #ai # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought # Equivariant vs invariant Equivariant: if you shuffle the input, the output will be shuffled too Invariant: in you shuffle the input, the output will not change Imagine a tree that has leaves on its branches. The color of the leaves changes depending on the season. If the tree was equivariant to the season changes, then if you were to shuffle the order of the seasons (i.e., fall, winter, spring, summer instead of the usual order) the color of the leaves would also be shuffled accordingly (i.e., leaves that turn red in fall will be the ones turning green in winter, etc.) If the tree was invariant to the season changes, then shuffling the order of the seasons would not affect the color of the leaves. The same leaves that turn red in fall will still turn red even if it becomes the first season of the year.