We provide a characterization of pseudoentropy in terms of hardness of sampling: Let $(X,B)$ be jointly distributed random variables such that $B$ takes values in a polynomial-sized set. We show that $B$ is computationally indistinguishable from a random variable of higher Shannon entropy given $X$ if and only if there ... more >>>

Consider a function that is mildly hard for size-$s$ circuits. For sufficiently large $s$, Impagliazzo's hardcore lemma guarantees a constant-density subset of inputs on which the same function is extremely hard for circuits of size $s'<\!\!<s$. Blanc, Hayderi, Koch, and Tan [FOCS 2024] recently showed that the degradation from $s$ ... more >>>