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GP inventor Koza and many others believe that genetic programming will be used in the future as an invention machine. David Andre, now a computer science grad student at UC-Berkeley, has worked with Koza and co-authored his latest book, "Genetic Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving." Andre predicts that in the next five to 10 years we will see many more examples of genetic programming being used to invent or design products that actually get used and sold. Genetic programming, Andre says, will "almost certainly be a tool that designers and engineers use in the process of inventing."

"Some people think that logic is the key to creating artificial intelligence," says Koza. "But logic is not the key to invention."

For an invention to be patentable, he points out, it must include an illogical element, a flash of insight. Patent law specifically refers to "the illogic of the invention process." In other words, if an invention can be logically inferred from existing knowledge, then it is not patentable.

"There needs to be an illogical or unjustifiable step to qualify something as an invention," Koza says. "What humans bring to the invention process is not their logic, but their illogic." Genetic programming, with its random breeding, mating and mutation, includes that element of fruitful illogic.

"Difficult problems can now be attacked using search techniques like genetic programming," says Andre, "and as computers become faster, and as genetic algorithms become more powerful, GP can be used to solve increasingly complex problems."

In April, Koza's Genetic Programming Inc. opened up a new, 1,000-node cluster of computers devoted to genetic programming. His previous work was done on a 64-node cluster. The new cluster is one of the largest chunks of computing power in the world and opens up new possibilities for GP-evolved solutions.

Advances in the field of genetic programming will likely continue to improve circuit and limb design and many other activities -- maybe even robot competitions. An intermediate goal in the RoboCup competition -- before robots take on Brazil's World Cup team, for example -- is to get rid of the walls that currently keep the robots on their tables. That would require better robot "vision" and maneuvering, which could certainly be designed with genetic programming. And maybe with GP-evolved artificial intelligence, future robots won't be just playing soccer with humans, but teaching their human peers new tricks.
salon.com | August 10, 1999

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