The point I’m making is that the difference you’re drawing between people and GLUTs isn’t really to do with their essential nature: it’s a more trivial asymmetry on things like how readable their state is and whether they have access to a private source of randomness. Fix these asymmetries and your problem case goes away.
A lookup table is stateless. The human is stateful. RAM beats ROM. This is not a trivial asymmetry but a fundamental asymmetry that enables the human to beat the GLUT. The algorithms:
Task + Question + state of the human → “Any Answer other than what the GLUT said I’d say”
If the human has looked up that particular output as well then that’s another input for the GLUT, and since the table includes all possible inputs this possibility is included as well, to infinite recursion.
Thanks for update! By “private source of randomness” I mean one that’s not available to the person on the other side of the window. Another way to look at it would be the sort of randomness you use to generate cryptographic keys—your adversary mustn’t have access to the randomness you draw from it.
The point I’m making is that the difference you’re drawing between people and GLUTs isn’t really to do with their essential nature: it’s a more trivial asymmetry on things like how readable their state is and whether they have access to a private source of randomness. Fix these asymmetries and your problem case goes away.
Thanks ciphergoth; I updated the original comment to allude to the error you spotted.
A lookup table is stateless. The human is stateful. RAM beats ROM. This is not a trivial asymmetry but a fundamental asymmetry that enables the human to beat the GLUT. The algorithms:
Stateless GLUT:
Question 1 → Answer 1
Question 2 → Answer 2
Question 3 → Answer 3
…
Stateful Human:
Any Question → Any Answer other than what the GLUT said I’d say
The human’s algorithm is bulletproof against answering predictably. The GLUT’s algorithm can only answer predictably.
P.S. I wasn’t entirely sure what you meant by “private source of randomness”. I also apologize if I’m slow to grasp any of your points.
GLUT:
Task + Question + state of the human → “Any Answer other than what the GLUT said I’d say”
If the human has looked up that particular output as well then that’s another input for the GLUT, and since the table includes all possible inputs this possibility is included as well, to infinite recursion.
The problem for the GLUT is that the “state of the human” is a function of the GLUT itself (the window causes the recursion).
And the human has exactly the same problem.
You’re right; got it. That’s also what ciphergoth was trying to tell me when he said that the asymmetries could be melted away.
Thanks for update! By “private source of randomness” I mean one that’s not available to the person on the other side of the window. Another way to look at it would be the sort of randomness you use to generate cryptographic keys—your adversary mustn’t have access to the randomness you draw from it.