Down with the Hierarchy: The 'H' in HNSW Stands for "Hubs" · HackerPapers discussions

Down with the Hierarchy: The 'H' in HNSW Stands for "Hubs" — HN submission

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:50:25 GMT

Down with the Hierarchy: The "H" in HNSW Stands for "Hubs"

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Down with the Hierarchy: The 'H' in HNSW Stands for "Hubs" — mentioned by patcon

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 21:33:16 GMT

> Similarly, there are, right now, efforts in order to really check if the “H” in the HNSWs is really needed, and if instead a flat data structure with just one layer would perform more or less the same (I hope I’ll cover more about this in the future: my feeling is that the truth is in the middle, and that it makes sense to modify the level selection function to just have levels greater than a given threshold). Small world networks have been my obsession for almost a decade, from a biological and sociological evolution angle. Love this stuff. This is the paper he's referring to, which I was…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Down with the Hierarchy: The 'H' in HNSW Stands for "Hubs" — HN submission

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 23:19:07 GMT

The hierarchy in HNSW is not necessary in high dimensions

5 points; 1 discussion reply on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.