From: Michael Anissimov (michaelanissimov@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Aug 14 2006 - 06:27:45 MDT
Summary: "Being able to compress well is closely related to
intelligence. While intelligence is a slippery concept, file sizes are
hard numbers. Wikipedia is an extensive snapshot of Human Knowledge.
If you can compress the first 100MB of Wikipedia better than your
predecessors, you(r compressor) likely has to be smart(er). The
intention of this prize is to encourage development of intelligent
compressors/programs."
Here is a longer rationale:
http://cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression/rationale.html
Interestingly enough, the idea for this contest was apparently
proposed by Jim Bowery, a very eccentric Bayesian whose website I
originally ran across in March: http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery.
Judging by the importance he seems to place on solving the AI problem,
he also appears to be a Singularitarian.
-- Michael Anissimov Lifeboat Foundation http://lifeboat.com http://acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog
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