# The evolution of lossy compression

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.06138 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.06138/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 19 Jun 2015.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03699/) (2021)
- [Position: Natural Language Should Not Fully Replace Formal Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20432/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In complex environments, there are costs to both ignorance and perception. An organism needs to track fitness-relevant information about its world, but the more information it tracks, the more resources it must devote to memory and processing. Rate-distortion theory shows that, when errors are allowed, remarkably efficient internal representations can be found by biologically-plausible hill-climbing mechanisms. We identify two regimes: a high-fidelity regime where perceptual costs scale logarithmically with environmental complexity, and a low-fidelity regime where perceptual costs are, remarkably, independent of the environment. When environmental complexity is rising, Darwinian evolution should drive organisms to the threshold between the high- and low-fidelity regimes. Organisms that code efficiently will find themselves able to make, just barely, the most subtle distinctions in their environment.