PIRSA:26030062

Decodable and Unlearnable Phases and Transitions

Hsieh, T. (2026). Decodable and Unlearnable Phases and Transitions. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/26030062

Hsieh, Timothy. Decodable and Unlearnable Phases and Transitions. Perimeter Institute, Mar. 11, 2026, https://pirsa.org/26030062 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:26030062,
            doi = {10.48660/26030062},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/26030062},
            author = {Hsieh, Timothy},
            keywords = {Other},
            language = {en},
            title = {Decodable and Unlearnable Phases and Transitions},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2026},
            month = {mar},
            note = {PIRSA:26030062 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Timothy Hsieh Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Talk numberPIRSA:26030062
DOI10.48660/26030062
Collection
Talk Type Scientific Series
Subject

Abstract

Physics has been driven by the discovery of novel phases of matter, largely in materials.  Recently, the advent of both quantum error correction and machine learning, viewed as physical phenomena, has compelled us to revisit the notion of a phase itself.  I will show how decodable/undecodable regimes of codes constitute distinct phases in a precise sense, and they furnish machine unlearnable/learnable phases of data.  I will demonstrate how conditional mutual information (CMI) serves as an essential quantity in characterizing the corresponding phases and transitions and thus provides a new diagnostic for both error correction thresholds and machine learnability of quantum and classical systems, including real-world data.