Evo Design

Computational Creativity and Evolutionary Design

Jonathan Byrne

Natural Computing Research and Applications Group

University College Dublin

Ireland

Overview

Creativity
Evolutionary Algorithms
Design Problems
Artificial Life and Game A.I.
Product Development

Defining Creativity

Creativity is subjective
"I know it when I see it"

Does not Compute

Creativity is a human endeavour
A computer only follows the instructions it is given
A computer has no insight into design problems

Infinite Monkey Theorem

"If an infinite number of monkeys randomly hit keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time then they would almost surely write the complete works of Shakespeare"

Although theoretically true, the internet has so far shown otherwise.

Brute Force Approach

"To be or not to be that is the question"

Probability of typing 't': 1/27
Probability of typing 'to' (1/27 * 1/27): 1 in 729
Probability of typing entire phrase (1/27 ^ 39): 1 in 66,555,937,033,867,822,607,895,549,241,096,482,953,017,615,834,735,226,163

How Long?

If a computer processed a million combinations a second:

2,110,474,918,628,482,452,051,482,408,710,568,333,111,923 years

Estimated age of the universe: 13,750,000,000 years

Evolutionary Algorithms (EA)

Heuristic Optimiser
Inspired by biological evolution

The Algorithm:

Generate an initial random population then:

Evaluate (fitness function)
Select (fitness pressure)
Crossover (heredity)
Mutate (variation)
Repeat

Evaluate

Target phrase: that

Population:

town (1)
flat (2)
pond (0)
this (2)

Selection

Tournament Selection:

Crossover

Mutation

"town" -> "toan"

Example

The Nature of Code by Daniel Schiffman

Link to code

Applications

NP complete problems:

Easy to check an answer but too many possible solutions

Large scale optimisation algorithms
Transport and routing
Scheduling
Bioinformatics

Since design problems defy comprehensive description and offer an inexhaustible number of solutions the design process cannot have a finite and identifiable end. The designer’s job is never really done and it is probably always possible to do better.

B. Lawson.