Saturday, August 7, 2010

See no evil, hear no evil, blurg no evil: Genetic algorithm user interface

Programming an uber-computer to complete a specific task is SOOOO last millenium. You should let the computer evolve its own solution to your problem by selecting the ten least lame solutions out of ten thousand, then propagating each of those via random code recombinations and "mutations" until you get a good program. Meanwhile, you can be kicking back having a quark swirl on the rocks. The user interface for this process can be tricky, and we have found that if there are three cheeky robot faces that talk back at you, you can guage how the program is evolving based on how the robot head personalities develop. It is an abstract but entertaining interface.

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