The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis: Finding Small, Trainable Neural Networks
Report a link problem
Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderWorking on DNNs is more similar to gambling on the slot machines then it is to traditional programming. I gather training data, write a python script, and then pay around $1 for GPU time to see if it's a winner. Instead of watching spinning reels I watch loss function graphs. 95% of the time it is a bust, but every once in a while you get a big payoff. I feel very smart when I win, but deeper investigation inevitably…
Article from 2018/19 and this hypothesis remains just that afaik with plenty of evidence going against it
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 261
- Total comments
- 41
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-03-19 | The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis: Training Pruned Neural Networks | jonbaer | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-07-05 | The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis: Finding Small, Trainable Neural NetworksFirst breakout · Best thread | jonbaer | 137 | 14 |
| 2020-10-23 | The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis: Finding Sparse, Trainable Neural Networks (2019) | plat12 | 1 | 0 |
| 2026-01-02 | The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis: finding sparse trainable NNs with 90% less paramsLatest 20+ point return | felineflock | 121 | 27 |