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What makes a function simple? Three equivalent answers
Balazs Szegedy
May 21, 2026
Functions of many variables can be classified by how much information they actually need. The authors prove three definitions of "simplicity" are equivalent: a function has the holographic property (output recoverable from random coordinates), can be approximated by low-degree polynomials in few coordinate forms, or is close to a shallow neural network with bounded weights. The result connects sampling, algebra, and neural computation through a single lens.
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