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How Claude Shannon used his wife as a language model in 1950

In 1950, Claude Shannon used his wife as a human language model to test the limits of text compression, demonstrating that prediction and compression are mathematically equivalent. The experiment, now highlighted in a new 3Blue1Brown video, connects Shannon's foundational information theory to modern artificial intelligence.

read1 min publishedJun 11, 2026

Grant Sanderson's new 3Blue1Brown video starts from a 1940s question — how far can you compress text? — and arrives at why it matters for AI.

The bridge is from Claude Shannon's information theory: "prediction and compression are mathematically equivalent," two sides of the same coin. — Read the rest

The post How Claude Shannon used his wife as a language model in 1950 appeared first on Boing Boing.

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