# aleatoric uncertainty

CEFR C2 · Noun

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/aleatoric-uncertainty
Updated: 2026-09-28

## Definition

uncertainty caused by natural randomness in the world, which cannot be removed by collecting more data.

For teachers: irreducible uncertainty inherent in the underlying physical or data-generating process that persists even with infinite data.

## Examples

- Sensor glare caused aleatoric uncertainty that no additional software training could eliminate.
- Predicting the exact moment a coin lands involves aleatoric uncertainty due to tiny air movements.
- Loss functions in computer vision separate heteroscedastic aleatoric uncertainty from model uncertainty by predicting per-pixel observation variance.

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