Program evolvability under environmental variations and neutrality

Biological organisms employ various mechanisms to cope with the dynamic environments they live in. One recent research reported that depending on the rates of environmental variation, populations evolve toward genotypes in different regions of the neutral networks to adapt to the changes. Inspired by that work, we used a genetic programming system to study the evolution of computer programs under environmental variation. Similar to biological evolution, the genetic programming populations exploit neutrality to cope with environmental fluctuations and evolve evolvability. We hope this work sheds new light on the design of open-ended evolutionary systems which are able to provide consistent evolvability under variable conditions.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: GECCO
• Authors: Tina Yu
• Keywords: Environmental Variation, GECCO 2007, Genetic Programming, Populations Exploit Neutrality