Inverse Design of Cellular Automata by Genetic Algorithms: An Unconventional Programming Paradigm

Evolving solutions rather than computing them certainly represents an unconventional programming approach. The general methodology of evolutionary computation has already been known in computer science since more than 40 years, but their utilization to program other algorithms is a more recent invention. In this paper, we outline the approach by giving an example where evolutionary algorithms serve to program cellular automata by designing rules for their iteration. Three different goals of the cellular automata designed by the evolutionary algorithm are outlined, and the evolutionary algorithm indeed discovers rules for the CA which solve these problems efficiently. 1 Evolutionary Algorithms Evolutionary Computation is the term for a subfield of Natural Computing that has emerged already in the 1960s from the idea to use principles of natural evolution as a paradigm for solving search and optimization problem in highdimensional combinatorial or continuous search spaces. The algorith...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: UPP
• Authors: Thomas Bäck, Ron Breukelaar, Lars Willmes
• Keywords: Algorithms Evolutionary Computation, Artificial Intelligence, Evolutionary Algorithms, Evolutionary Computation, UPP 2004