Crimson Crux

“Its creations earn patents, outperform humans, and will soon fly to space. All it needs now is a few worthy challenges.” — Jonathon Keats, Popular Science.

No other two lines can more effectively sum up Stanford University professor John Koza’s “invention machine”, a network of 1,000 computers that creates innovative (sometimes startling) designs from the most basic code — all without human guidance. This is accomplished through genetic programming and — get this — Darwininian evolution, or what most folks call as the process of natural selection.

So now we have what seems to be a turning point in science causing another turning point. But that’s what science is all about, right?

Basically the “invention machine” mates bits of computer programs together, with the offspring having low “fitness ratings” being discarded. Just like natural selection. The machine’s father, John Koza, is himself the inventor of genetic programming, an approach to AI that creates a computer program from a high-level problem statement, without human guidance.

It looks like the machine is really damn creative; after all, one of its “inventions” successfully obtained a patent early this year (not to mention re-invent 21 previously patented inventions). I can just hear the geeks chant “robots will enslave us all” in the background. Oh, those were the little voices in my head.

For more on the “invention machine”, read Keats’ article, or visit the genetic programming home page.