7 ms·

You can use its own output against it. (Which means, ironically, it does not follow "know thyself", a maxim said to be from the Oracle at Delphi.) Fixate on a

You can use its own output against it. (Which means, ironically, it does not follow "know thyself", a maxim said to be from the Oracle at Delphi.) Fixate on a number fairly late in the sequence (the millionths place seems to work well). If that number is 5-9, push 'f'. Otherwise, push 'd'. Keeps it pretty consistently around 0.5.

brianpan 10y ago
You got 0.5, but where's your free will now, human?
- Natsu 10y ago
  One could also invoke that free will and simply not play the game at all.
  - mevile 10y ago
    You're playing this game, every day with every website you go to, every store you visit, every app you use, every interaction you make. Unless you live a (probably less comfortable) life in a rural area. These types of techs for the most part make out lives better.
    - madmax96 10y ago
      >make lives better By some sense of the word. I think we over-value convenience, which is all most of this tech really gives us.
- joe_the_user 10y ago
  It means either both the poster and the bot have free will or neither of them do! But seriously, the intuitive concept of free will, something like "unconstrained choice" leads to the idea that free will means simulating randomness - but once you're there, it looks more or less like nonsense - "acting randomly"
  - lotharbot 10y ago
    I think the intuitive concept of free will is more like "able to take meaningful actions" -- which means choices that express intent or desire. Sometimes your intent is to be unpredictable, to fool the algorithm. But sometimes your intent is to be consistent.
knodi123 10y ago
"To maximize your free will, press the key that the robot tells you to."
- etjossem 10y ago
  Right! Someone please get dang to retitle this submission, so we can all finally stop equating free will with unpredictability.
  - wetmore 10y ago
    It's a joke. From the github page: > In a class I taught at Berkeley, I did an experiment where I wrote a simple little program that would let people type either “f” or “d” and would predict which key they were going to push next. It’s actually very easy to write a program that will make the right prediction about 70% of the time. Most people don’t really know how to type randomly. They’ll have too many alternations and so on. There will be all sorts of patterns, so you just have to build some sort of probabilistic model. Even a very crude one will do well. I couldn’t even beat my own program, knowing exactly how it worked. I challenged people to try this and the program was getting between 70% and 80% prediction rates. Then, we found one student that the program predicted exactly 50% of the time. We asked him what his secret was and he responded that he “just used his free will.”
    - scythe 10y ago
      If you just type 01101110010111011110001001..., you should evade any simple LZW-type compressor, as this string is (viewed as a radix expansion in binary) a normal number.
- SilasX 10y ago
  "I can do whatever I want! See, I do exactly what the n-th digit of pi says to!"
- mjt0229 10y ago
  I for one freely obey our new robot overlords?
ErrantX 10y ago
A less efficient method I used was; press a key until the probability jumps up, then switch keys (probability will go down, mostly) until it goes up again. Rinse/repeat.
- qrendel 10y ago
  I tried that. It learns what you're doing pretty quickly. I was doing better by just trying to continually break whatever pattern I had fallen into, and occasionally throwing in some long predictable patterns (i.e. all the same key) to simulate the low chance of a long predictable string occurring. That had me down in the ~.4 range for a while. (Edit: Down to 0.23529 this try)

brianpan 10y ago

You got 0.5, but where's your free will now, human?

Natsu 10y ago
One could also invoke that free will and simply not play the game at all.
- mevile 10y ago
  You're playing this game, every day with every website you go to, every store you visit, every app you use, every interaction you make. Unless you live a (probably less comfortable) life in a rural area. These types of techs for the most part make out lives better.
  - madmax96 10y ago
    >make lives better By some sense of the word. I think we over-value convenience, which is all most of this tech really gives us.
joe_the_user 10y ago
It means either both the poster and the bot have free will or neither of them do! But seriously, the intuitive concept of free will, something like "unconstrained choice" leads to the idea that free will means simulating randomness - but once you're there, it looks more or less like nonsense - "acting randomly"
- lotharbot 10y ago
  I think the intuitive concept of free will is more like "able to take meaningful actions" -- which means choices that express intent or desire. Sometimes your intent is to be unpredictable, to fool the algorithm. But sometimes your intent is to be consistent.

knodi123 10y ago

"To maximize your free will, press the key that the robot tells you to."

etjossem 10y ago
Right! Someone please get dang to retitle this submission, so we can all finally stop equating free will with unpredictability.
- wetmore 10y ago
  It's a joke. From the github page: > In a class I taught at Berkeley, I did an experiment where I wrote a simple little program that would let people type either “f” or “d” and would predict which key they were going to push next. It’s actually very easy to write a program that will make the right prediction about 70% of the time. Most people don’t really know how to type randomly. They’ll have too many alternations and so on. There will be all sorts of patterns, so you just have to build some sort of probabilistic model. Even a very crude one will do well. I couldn’t even beat my own program, knowing exactly how it worked. I challenged people to try this and the program was getting between 70% and 80% prediction rates. Then, we found one student that the program predicted exactly 50% of the time. We asked him what his secret was and he responded that he “just used his free will.”
  - scythe 10y ago
    If you just type 01101110010111011110001001..., you should evade any simple LZW-type compressor, as this string is (viewed as a radix expansion in binary) a normal number.
SilasX 10y ago
"I can do whatever I want! See, I do exactly what the n-th digit of pi says to!"
mjt0229 10y ago
I for one freely obey our new robot overlords?

ErrantX 10y ago

A less efficient method I used was; press a key until the probability jumps up, then switch keys (probability will go down, mostly) until it goes up again. Rinse/repeat.

qrendel 10y ago
I tried that. It learns what you're doing pretty quickly. I was doing better by just trying to continually break whatever pattern I had fallen into, and occasionally throwing in some long predictable patterns (i.e. all the same key) to simulate the low chance of a long predictable string occurring. That had me down in the ~.4 range for a while. (Edit: Down to 0.23529 this try)