LessWrong (Curated & Popular) [Linkpost] “If you’re not sure how to sort a list or grid—seriate it!” by gwern
May 28, 2025
Discover the fascinating world of seriation, a method for organizing data by minimizing differences. Learn about the R package designed for this purpose, which offers various techniques and visualization tools. The discussion includes real-life applications and personal anecdotes that highlight the ease of grouping and visualizing data. Unravel the complexities of data analysis with a fun and engaging exploration of effective ordering strategies!
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
What is Seriation?
- Seriation is the process of finding an approximate linear order for objects based on minimizing differences between adjacent items.
- This approach generalizes sorting where no strict order comparison is available, solving a fundamental data analysis problem.
Use Seriation for Unsortable Lists
- Use seriation to order lists when no obvious sorting criteria exist.
- It organizes items by minimizing the difference between neighbors, revealing meaningful clusters.
Real-World Use of Seriation
- Gwern uses seriation on gwrn.net to arrange similar recommended links more effectively than naive KNN distance sorting.
- Seriation reveals clear topic clusters out of otherwise jumbled listings, improving usability.