bogus comments on Eliezer's Sequences and Mainstream Academia - Less Wrong

99 Post author: lukeprog 15 September 2012 12:32AM

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Comment author: ArisKatsaris 21 September 2012 01:55:00PM -1 points [-]

Which instance of "random" do you think should have been pseudo random?

The instance I quoted. But as I said the point is trivial.

Are you saying that the use of randomisation in software is always a misttake

I don't think I used the word "mistake", at all. I didn't even imply that it's sometimes a mistake, let alone always.

It is true that a random number is no good in itself, but equally you can't solve every problem with pure determinism.

Please name three problems you can't solve with determinism but you can solve with random-number generators. Besides encryption which depends on secrecy and therefore depends on not knowing what will come out, I can't think of any.

Comment author: bogus 21 September 2012 02:34:43PM *  5 points [-]

Since quantum algorithms are inherently random, these three problems qualify:

  1. Solve the Deutsch-Jozsa problem in constant time.
  2. Search an unstructured database in O(sqrt(n)) time.
  3. Factorize integers in polynomial time.

Moreover, randomized algorithms are occasionally useful in a classical computer, since they give good expected performance even for some classes of degenerate inputs.