# What doest it mean: “computer is an intelligence amplifier”?

There is one example in Kolmogorov complexity books and related articles:

Consider we have a monkey at a typewriter and a monkey at a computer keyboard.

If the monkey types at random on a typewriter, the probability that it types out all the works of Shakespeare (assuming that the text is 1 million bits long) is about

p_typewriter (works of Shakespeare) ≈ 2^−1000000


If the monkey sits at a computer terminal, however, the probability that it types out Shakespeare is now related to the Kolmogorov complexity of the works of Shakespeare, which can be approximated by

K(works of Shakespeare) ≈ 250000 bits

using a program that compacts these works using 250000 bits. Then:

p_computer(works of Shakespeare)≈2^−K(works of Shakespeare) ≈2^−250000


The example indicates that a random input to a computer is much more likely to produce “interesting” outputs than a random input to a typewriter.

We all know that a computer is an intelligence amplifier...

What actually the computer does?

• "Intelligent information" (as interpreted by humans) is compressible (it contains repetitions, patterns, and so on); so a computer is simply able to "uncompress" a short string to a larger one; and a short random string is more likely to contain a compressed intelligent content. For a bunch of references about compressibility vs meaning see wasdarwinwrong.com/kortho44a.htm – Vor Mar 27 at 11:32
• The link is not working. I understand that a computer can compress information by finding hidden patterns. The question is why do you need fewer trials on the computer? For example, if I generate 01010101 than a computer can interpret some text as instructions ('for, if...'), but how it can help? – Oleg Dats Mar 27 at 12:09