Genetic Algorithm Fun

[dariusk]

So I was watching this genetic algorithm thingie I saw on Boing Boing. It's pretty cool. Then the Boing Boing comment thread pointed me to the original Reddit thread for the app. I saw an amusing comment there from ThisIsDave:

Are you familiar with Hod Lipson's work? He does a lot of the same things at Cornell.

Extraordinarily cool.

Edit

A few cool

Comments

[purly]

In elementary school once we were asked to make an alternative fuel vehicle proof of concept. I strung a string from one end of the class to the other, one end at the ceiling and the other at the floor. Then I attached a washer to a balloon and strung it onto the string. Instant gravity vehicle!

[bsdcat]

So cheating is a completely natural phenomenon, and the only solution is to fix the bugs? :-P

[dariusk]

When the players are optimized to WIN AT ALL COSTS, yes :P

[bsdcat]

I would argue that when the test is based on performance, that's what you get... personal predilections of individual actors can prevent them from participating, but that just means it takes a little longer to yield the same result.

[neuromancerzss]

All the bits with ethics were killed off by the cold hard survival() function.

[surrealkitten]

i love the world algorithm and dreamed it referred to some secret but easily-understandable, empirically-derived formula to predicting the future based on patterns of past events. but it isn't, really.

[dariusk]

Algorithm derives from the name of the Persian mathematician, Al-Khowrazimi.

[surrealkitten]

oh! that's why rithm is spelled funny. it would do, wouldn't it, beginning with an al.

[darius]

I haven't followed your links yet (busy this morning), but at least anecdote #1 happened already in Karl Sims's work back in the 90s: http://www.karlsims.com/evolved-virtual-creatures.html (Maybe that's already mentioned in your links.)

I think he saw some exploits of physics bugs too, though I don't remember. Neat stuff!

[ab3nd]

He did see some other weird physics exploits. There was one version of this experiment where either friction momentum wasn't treated properly, and one of the critters evolved to move by slapping itself on the back. Get on a skateboard, push on your own chest, and let me know how far you get.

[purple_dj]

There was a another real-world experiment where someone used a genetic algorithm to program FPGAs for a certain circuit. The rig was designed such that it could reprogram the FPGA and score the circuit without needing to disconnect/reconnect programmers or with any human intervention.

In the end, their run did produce the already known optimal design, but it also produced a few other more optimal solutions that took advantages of flaws in the individual FPGA chip in the socket. That is to say, the program was mostly nonsensical to anyone trying to read it, and wouldn't work on other FPGA chips of the same type.

Of course, I can't seem to find links or references to this anymore. You'll just have to take my word for it. (Screw you, Reading Rainbow!)

[dariusk]

There has to be a tie-in there to the old "beware of premature optimization" saying. Pretty amazing, though.

[slarti]

I, personally, hate that saying, because it easily leads to insistence that no, it's still too soon to optimize, to the point where engineers can never be made to actually work on it and sysadmins are instead expected to cough up increasingly crazily beefy hardware to support the poor performance characteristics of the software.

Uh, not that I'm bitter or anything, mind you.

[dariusk]

Oh yeah, it's one of the most abused old chestnuts in the history of programming. "I am lazy, let's not optimize."