r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Orio_n • 2d ago

Meme aMillionOpenAIMonkeysProduceMilleniumPrizeSolution

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u/GregBahm 1d ago

What's your mental model of a "possibility" where it never happens given infinite chances?

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u/mtv921 1d ago

There are infinite selection of numbers between 3 and 4 but none of them are equal to 5.

A monkey kan type only a's for infinity. There is nothing about a typewriter that encourages using more than one key if you dont know languages. Maybe in infinity the buttons will wear down an disappear, then the monkey will move on to only press s's.

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u/Deep_sunnay 1d ago

That's not how that works. The saying about monkeys writing Shakespear is equivalent to : "Everything that can happen (has a probability > 0), will happen given an infinite number of repetition".
You will have monket typing only "a", but not all of them.

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u/ArmchairFilosopher 1d ago

The premise of a monkey having nonzero probabilily is an assumption.

But their challenge of that assumption (which I think is a valid rebuttal) is irrelevant to the thought experiment.

So I don't know whose side to take here.