Emergence of sophisticated compression algorithms in complex systems

Determine the prevalence and conditions under which complex systems can emergently develop sophisticated data processing algorithms, such as Lempel–Ziv–Welch–like compression schemes.

Background

In contrasting Assembly Theory with compression-based measures, the authors note that algorithms like LZW depend on specific reading and labeling schemes and question whether complex systems would naturally evolve such sophisticated algorithms.

They explicitly state uncertainty about how commonly complex systems might discover or implement such algorithms emergently.