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Got it to 0.5991561181434598 after a while (totally random would be "0.5"). Not sure how "free will" comes into play, if there was indeed free will, I could have freely decided to only press one, and the Oracle would have had close to 100% certainty. Rather, what it measures is randomness or predictability, which is not the same thing as free will (especially "after the fact", e.g. after the choice is made).
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.
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.
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)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. It tries to measure how random your brain's PRNG is, which has nothing to do with free will. A simple computer has no free will at all, but after being instructed to type randomly, it will score close to 0.5 without fail. The "free will" quote comes from a Berkley quantum computing student, who chose keys as independently of pattern as he could [1], and this seems to take it out of context. It might make sense…
To most people, "how predictable you are" and "whether you have free will" are almost the same question.
RE free will itself, I'm thinking it has more to do with metacognition and general complexity of thoughts. People may have free will, but they're running the same "free will algorithm" - give them the same inputs, and most of the time you'll get the same outputs. A lot of people don't want to consciously accept that, but it's a fact. It's e.g. why economics works at all - because people are predictable at scale.
But when do we most often reference the concept of "free will" in practice? In evaluating degree of responsibility for decisions. "You did X, which was the most obvious and beneficial in the short-term option, but you could've done Y or Z, which would be better - therefore you will suffer consequences". Or, "I won't do X even though the situation tries to manipulate me into doing it; I notice I'm being manipulated so I'll do Y instead". Scenarios like these refer to the human ability of a) non-greedy optimization (long-term planning), and b) being able to go meta many levels up, to notice their own patterns of thoughts and use them as an input to the thinking process. A feedback loop over metacognition if you don't mind.
This is still all pretty deterministic. The apparent randomness - I think - comes from the fact that a) two people never have perfectly the same set of inputs, because the internal state is dependent on one's life history, and b) in some cases slight variations in those inputs cause huge variations in outputs (butterfly/hurricane and all that). In a way, the main connection between "free will" and randomness may be just that a human doesn't have capability to perfectly predict the thought process of another human. We can do that to inanimate objects, we can do that to algorithms we write - at least in principle. But we know that other humans will always suprise us (at least because they can notice we're trying to predict them and start acting random to mess with us).
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.
"To maximize your free will, press the key that the robot tells you to."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always choose the one that makes a new 6-gram, or that makes a 6-gram with the fewest previous appearances?
Sure, is there an easy way to generate that algorithmically without maintaining an explicit history? Is there a well-known sequence with that property? Do Gray codes have it, for example?