It says it will predict which key I will press next but it doesn't say which key it's predicting. is it f or d?
Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
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Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#72Got 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).
I think I might have missed the point of this. Is this just a predictability score - really simple one?
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#73At first I was stuck at ~0.95 but I was just striking the keys really fast but then I concentrated and looked at the keys and really tried to feel which key I wanted to press and it worked. I was able to score lower ~0.4. I'm computationally irreducible for now.
Well, if your score is .4, a computer could predict you with .6 accuracy just by predicting what you will press and then guessing the opposite :)
but how does it know to use the opposite for him and not for other guesses? I make a similar mistake when I try to remember something by noting "it's not the choice I'm naturally inclined to choose, it's the other one". After I get used to using that heuristic, the correct choice becomes the one I'm naturally inclined to do, but then I have trouble remembering "is it the choice I'm inclined to do or the opposite". I've since ditched that heuristic when I realize I'm doing it because it is quite detrimental.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#74Got 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).
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 retitle this submission to something marginally less clickbaity, like "test how predictable you are."
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#75I had a professor who, when playing games where the best move was to choose randomly (for instance, in a CCG, forcing the opponent to discard a card from their hand that you designate without seeing their hand), would always roll a die or otherwise mechanically randomize their choice, to ensure that they never exhibited potentially exploitable patterns in selection.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#76I chose not to press either button. The ultimate act of free will! (Just kidding, I got stuck around 0.63)
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#77When I was little (and had too much free time) I memorized many digits of some transcendental numbers. The only (semi)practical use I've found for that knowledge, is that I can use it as a reasonably good pseudorandom stream. If for some reason I have to choose things pseudorandomly. Pick an arbitrary starting point in pi, and press 'd' for even digits and 'f' for odd digits, I get around 0.49 accuracy with this orac…
Well, that only shows that this oracle can be improved. It should be able to recognize that pattern from a well known transcendental number.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#78So. I have done a similar thing for a while now. I call it adversarial selection. I ask a participant(p) to guess a number [1,10] repeatedly. After they guess a number, I immediately tell them my guess of their selected number. Immediately after I guess they are instructed to make a new guess and tap the table indicating they have picked a number. The point is to go through these generations very fast. Often what I'l…
Are you sure the 10% chance isn't standing out more in your memory? It would be interesting to measure this over hundreds of guesses.
It seems likely that the probability of guessing correctly would be around 1/9, since people rarely pick the same number, but is a sustained 1/8 or better really possible?
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#79I got it down to 0.51-something by simply switching keys iff the measure increased. Ironic, since I was exhibiting no "free will" by following that rule :)
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#80I have pi memorized to a fair number of digits, so I decided to try that.
d 3 times f 1 time d 4 times etc.
... and got 50% almost exactly.