Stanley, Kenneth O. “Generative and developmental systems.” In Proceedings of the 15th annual conference companion on Genetic and evolutionary computation , pp. 797-826. 2013.
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In evolutionary computation it is common for the genotype to map directly to the phenotype such that each gene in the genotype represents a single discrete component of the phenotype. While this convention is widespread, in nature the mapping is not direct. Instead, the genotype maps to the phenotype through a process of development, which means that each gene may be activated multiple times and in multiple places in the process of constructing the phenotype.
This tutorial will examine why such indirect mapping may be critical to the continuing success of evolutionary computation. Rather than just an artifact of nature, indirect mapping means that vast phenotypic spaces (e.g. the 100 trillion connection human brain) can be searched effectively in a space of far fewer genes (e.g. the 30,000 gene human genome). The tutorial will introduce this research area, called Generative and Developmental Systems (GDS), by surveying milestones in the field, exploring GDS-based representations, and introducing its most profound puzzles. Most importantly, what is the right abstraction of natural development to capture its essential advantages without introducing unnecessary overhead into the search?