[R] Differentiable Clustering & Search !

Reddit r/MachineLearning / 4/3/2026

💬 OpinionIdeas & Deep AnalysisTools & Practical UsageModels & Research

Key Points

  • The post introduces an experimental differentiable clustering approach that combines multiple loss terms to incorporate mutual information, semantic proximity, and user-defined constraints (e.g., forcing two items/tags to belong to the same cluster).
  • It describes how clustering can be made fully differentiable so the clustering objective can be optimized jointly rather than using non-differentiable steps.
  • The method is then used to enable search over a catalog by leveraging the learned cluster structure for retrieval.
  • The author notes the work originated from an internal project, where an alternative was ultimately implemented due to constraints, and frames the write-up as “research flare” despite being more exploratory than a formal study.
  • The article emphasizes practical feedback from readers and clarifies that AI was only used for sentence/spelling checks, with most content being human-authored.

Hey guys,

I occasionally write articles on my blog, and I am happy to share the new one with you : https://bornlex.github.io/posts/differentiable-clustering/.

It came from something I was working for at work, and we ended up implementing something else because of the constraints that we have.

The method mixes different loss terms to achieve a differentiable clustering method that takes into account mutual info, semantic proximity and even constraints such as the developer enforcing two tags (could be documents) to be part of the same cluster.

Then it is possible to search the catalog using the clusters.

All of it comes from my mind, I used an AI to double check the sentences, spelling, so it might have rewritten a few sentences, but most of it is human made.

I've added the research flair even though it is not exactly research, but more experimental work.

Can't wait for your feedback !

Ju

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