[SEQ RERUN] Worse Than Random

Today’s post, Worse Than Random was originally published on 11 November 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

If a system does better when randomness is added into its processing, then it must somehow have been performing worse than random. And if you can recognize that this is the case, you ought to be able to generate a non-randomized system.


Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we’ll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky’s old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Lawful Uncertainty, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day’s sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.