\
  The most prestigious law school admissions discussion board in the world.
BackRefresh Options Airdrop

Why do we square the errors in OLS? Why not use true values?

go ahead and Google it and you'll never get a straight answe...
insanely creepy trip range
  08/26/26
(first year LRM econometrics student)
Misunderstood Public Bath Main People
  08/26/26
Squaring has a real cost. Because a big error is punished so...
insanely creepy trip range
  08/26/26
This is like watching prince tp read high school math books ...
Green irate circlehead
  08/26/26
I thought it would be an easy question for poasters to answe...
insanely creepy trip range
  08/26/26
Anyone?
insanely creepy trip range
  08/26/26
Just measure at the actual errors. What's wrong with that? D...
insanely creepy trip range
  08/26/26
"What I still don't understand is why OLS regression is...
insanely creepy trip range
  08/26/26


Poast new message in this thread



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:12 AM
Author: insanely creepy trip range

go ahead and Google it and you'll never get a straight answer. Ask Claude Fable and you'll get wrong answers only, I bet

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093497)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:14 AM
Author: Misunderstood Public Bath Main People

(first year LRM econometrics student)

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093500)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:17 AM
Author: insanely creepy trip range

Squaring has a real cost. Because a big error is punished so hard, a single wrong data point can drag the whole line towards itself. One student recorded as 8 hours and 3 marks, by a typo, will bend the line more than the other seven points together.

The absolute version is far more resistant to that, and it has a name, mean absolute error. It is a good choice when your data has outliers you cannot remove. It is used less often mostly because of the corner, and because squared error has clean mathematics behind it.

https://teachyourselfcoding.com/courses/learn-machine-learning-from-first-principles-using-javascript/lesson/why-we-square-the-error/?page_tab=overview

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093513)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:19 AM
Author: Green irate circlehead

This is like watching prince tp read high school math books all over again

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093516)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:20 AM
Author: insanely creepy trip range

I thought it would be an easy question for poasters to answer

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093518)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:21 AM
Author: insanely creepy trip range

Anyone?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093520)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:22 AM
Author: insanely creepy trip range

Just measure at the actual errors. What's wrong with that? Do we really just like to square things because it's easier to work with all positive integers?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093523)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 8:40 PM
Author: insanely creepy trip range

"What I still don't understand is why OLS regression is still the default solution to the problem of linear regression. It seems to me that in the majority of practical situations, the costs associated with errors are linear or approximately linear. If I order 2 extra parts, I incur twice the unnecessary cost as compared to if I order 1 extra part. Therefore, the optimal solution that OLS produces will not correspond to an optimal solution in reality."

https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/470626/why-is-using-squared-error-the-standard-when-absolute-error-is-more-relevant-to

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50095388)