{"slug": "how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950", "title": "How Claude Shannon used his wife as a language model in 1950", "summary": "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.", "body_md": "Grant Sanderson's new [3Blue1Brown video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6DKRf-fAAM) starts from a 1940s question — how far can you compress text? — and arrives at why it matters for AI.\n\nThe bridge is from Claude Shannon's information theory: \"prediction and compression are mathematically equivalent,\" two sides of the same coin. — [Read the rest ](https://boingboing.net/2026/06/11/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950.html)\n\nThe post [How Claude Shannon used his wife as a language model in 1950](https://boingboing.net/2026/06/11/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950.html) appeared first on [Boing Boing](https://boingboing.net).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950", "canonical_source": "https://boingboing.net/2026/06/11/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950.html", "published_at": "2026-06-11 19:34:39+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-11 20:08:08.930672+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Claude Shannon", "Grant Sanderson", "3Blue1Brown", "Boing Boing"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-claude-shannon-used-his-wife-as-a-language-model-in-1950.jsonld"}}