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Pseudorandomness Contest

Pseudorandomness Contest

Jan 15, 2021 by Eric Neyman

In December 2020, I ran a pseudorandomness contest. Here’s how it worked:

  • In Round 1, participants were invited to submit 150-bit strings of their own devising. They had 10 minutes to write down their string while using nothing but their own minds. I received 62 submissions.
  • I then used a computer to generate 62 random 150-bit strings, and put all 124 strings in a random order. In Round 2, participants had to figure out which strings were human-generated and which were “truly” random. In particular, I asked for probabilities that each string was real, so participants could express their confidence rather than guessing “real” or “fake” for each string. I received 27 submissions for Round 2.

The analysis post (the last in the series) may be interesting to you even if you did not participate in the contest!

34Pseudorandomness contest, Round 1
Eric Neyman
5y
20
28Pseudorandomness contest, Round 2
Eric Neyman
5y
6
168Pseudorandomness contest: prizes, results, and analysis
Eric Neyman
5y
22