The *range avoidance problem*, denoted as $\mathcal{C}$-$\rm Avoid$, asks to find a non-output of a given $\mathcal{C}$-circuit $C:\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}^\ell$ with stretch $\ell>n$. This problem has recently received much attention in complexity theory for its connections with circuit lower bounds and other explicit construction problems. Inspired by the Algorithmic Method for circuit ... more >>>

It is a long-standing open problem whether the Minimum Circuit Size Problem ($\mathrm{MCSP}$) and related meta-complexity problems are NP-complete. Even for the rare cases where the NP-hardness of meta-complexity problems are known, we only know very weak hardness of approximation.

In this work, we prove NP-hardness of approximating meta-complexity with ... more >>>