Information theory is being rewritten using financial hedging and game theory to unify how we think about data.
April 14, 2026
Original Paper
A Non-Probabilistic Game-Theoretic Information Theory Which Subsumes Probabilistic Channel Coding
arXiv · 2604.10868
The Takeaway
This new framework unifies traditional channel coding and adversarial/zero-error settings. It uses financial 'dynamic hedging' concepts to provide a more robust way to handle data transmission in unpredictable or hostile environments.
From the abstract
Probabilistic settings (e.g., vanishing-error channel coding) and non-probabilistic settings (e.g., zero-error channel coding and adversarial channels) were considered two related but different branches of information theory which do not subsume each other. We propose a unifying non-probabilistic information theory based on game theory and dynamic hedging which subsumes the conventional probabilistic channel coding theorem (vanishing error, with or without feedback) and lossless source coding th