Will_Pearson comments on The Weighted Majority Algorithm - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 November 2008 11:19PM

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Comment author: Will_Pearson 14 November 2008 09:15:56PM 1 point [-]

Don how well a deterministic algorithm does depends upon what the deterministic algorithm is and what the input is, it cannot always query O(1) queries.

E.g. in a 20 bit case

If the deterministic algorithm starts its queries from the beginning, querying each bit in turn and this is pattern is always 00000111110000000000

It will always take n/4+1 queries. Only when the input is random will it on average take O(1) queries.

The random one will take O(1) on average on every type of input.