Interesting thoughts. When looking at your link which links to Shannon-Mind-Reading machine I immediately think of several things. One: branch prediction. The mind-reading machine seems a lot like a branch predictor. Two: I used this type of algorithm for a baseball game I wrote when writing the pitching /batting 'AI'. - In fact I stole it from the Intel hardware manual. Three: Rock Paper Scissors - people who are good at Rock Paper Scissors , I feel, use some type of prediction based on your tendencies and tells. Like the dog you mention... There's more in this deep well but I'll stop there.