Elevator Pitch
Genetic algorithms are a way to “evolve” solutions to a problem, similar to biological evolution. This often reveals solutions that humans would never have thought of, like NASA’s ST5 spacecraft antenna! I will show you how these work, and how to use them to solve multiple kinds of problems.
Description
Yes, that’s right, geneTic, not geneRic. Genetic algorithms are shortcuts to “evolve” solutions to problems, similar to real-world biological evolution. They find a “good enough” solution more quickly than precise calculation or brute-forcing through all possible options. The randomness often reveals great solutions that humans probably would never have thought of, such as NASA’s twisty ST5 spacecraft antenna, developed by a genetic algorithm in 2006!
This talk will explain the general concept, and then walk through some examples, explaining terms and pointing out tradeoffs and nuances along the way.
You will come away equipped with a powerful technique for solving problems in ways no human would probably ever think of directly!
Notes
I have done this talk for several conferences, in lengths from about 25 to 60 minutes (plus Q&A). You can see videos of some in my playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMrm16n64Buag1–3P3xf9KnrH330nrPc .
Agenda: - What are genetic algorithms? - Brief history - Examples of pre-existing usage - Walkthrough of using it to solve different kinds of problems, pointing out terms, tradeoffs, nuances, etc. along the way - FAQs - Conclusion/recap - Q&A
The code is currently in Ruby, but I could easily do versions in Elixir, Python, JavaScript, or even C.