Neuroevolution

Neuroevolution, or neuro-evolution, is a form of artificial intelligence that uses evolutionary algorithms to generate artificial neural networks (ANN), parameters, and rules. It is most commonly applied in artificial life, general game playing and evolutionary robotics. The main benefit is that neuroevolution can be applied more widely than supervised learning algorithms, which require a syllabus of correct input-output pairs. In contrast, neuroevolution requires only a measure of a network's performance at a task. For example, the outcome of a game (i.e., whether one player won or lost) can be easily measured without providing labeled examples of desired strategies. Neuroevolution is commonly used as part of the reinforcement learning paradigm, and it can be contrasted with conventional deep learning techniques that use gradient descent on a neural network with a fixed topology. Many neuroevolution algorithms have been defined. One common distinction is between algorithms that evolve only the strength of the connection weights for a fixed network topology (sometimes called conventional neuroevolution), and algorithms that evolve both the topology of the network and its weights (called TWEANNs, for Topology and Weight Evolving Artificial Neural Network algorithms). A separate distinction can be made between methods that evolve the structure of ANNs in parallel to its parameters (those applying standard evolutionary algorithms) and those that develop them separately (through memetic algorithms). Most neural networks use gradient descent rather than neuroevolution. However, around 2017 researchers at Uber stated they had found that simple structural neuroevolution algorithms were competitive with sophisticated modern industry-standard gradient-descent deep learning algorithms, in part because neuroevolution was found to be less likely to get stuck in local minima. In Science, journalist Matthew Hutson speculated that part of the reason neuroevolution is succeeding where it had failed before is due to the increased computational power available in the 2010s.