Best-Selling Author and Award-Winning
Professor David E. Goldberg
discusses the intimate connections between human innovation and
so-called competent genetic algorithms.

The course starts with the idea of a simple genetic algorithm that uses analogs of natural processes such as selection, mutation, and recombination and develops more sophisticated programs called competent genetic algorithms. Competent GAs are designed to solve hard problems quickly, reliably, and accurately. In practical terms, this means that businesspeople, scientists, and engineers can now solve a broad array of practical problems with fast, scalable computer tools based on nature. In human terms, this means that the processes of innovation we use as human beings--processes we sometimes call "trial and error"--may be more efficient than once thought.