What's the "Hello World!" of genetic algorithms good for?

Question

I found this very cool C++ sample , literally the "Hello World!" of genetic algorithms.

I so decided to re-code the whole thing in C# and this is the result.

Now I am asking myself: is there any practical application along the lines of generating a target string starting from a population of random strings?

EDIT: my buddy on twitter just tweeted that "is useful for transcription type things such as translation. Does not have to be Monkey's". I wish I had a clue.

Answer 1

Is there any practical application along the lines of generating a target string starting from a population of random strings?

Sure. Imagine any scenario in which you know how to evaluate the fitness of a particular string, and in which the choices are discrete and constrained in some way:

• Picking pronounceable names ("Xhjkxc" has low fitness; "Artekzo" has high fitness)
• Trying out a series of chess moves
• Guessing the combination to a safe, assuming you can tell how close you are to unlocking each tumbler
• Picking phone numbers that evaluate to words (e.g. "843-2378" has high fitness because it spells "THE-BEST")

Answer 2

No. Each time you run the GA, you are giving it the eventual answer. This is great for showing how a GA works and to show how powerful it can be, but it does not have any purpose beyond that.