I. Introduction

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First Words

Genetic algorithms are part of evolutionary computing, a rapidly growing area of artificial intelligence.

As you might expect, genetic algorithms are inspired by Darwin's theory of evolution. Simply put, the solution to a problem is evolved rather than designed directly.

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History

The idea of evolutionary computing was introduced in the 1960s by I. Rechenberg in his work "Evolution Strategies" (Evolutionsstrategie in the original). His ideas were later developed by other researchers. Genetic algorithms (GAs) were invented by John Holland and further developed by him, his students, and his colleagues. This led to Holland's book "Adaption in Natural and Artificial Systems", published in 1975.

In 1992, John Koza used genetic algorithms to evolve programs that performed specific tasks. He called his method "genetic programming" (GP). LISP programs were used because programs in that language can be expressed in the form of a "parse tree", which is the structure the GA works with.