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If evolutionary algorithms are so magical, why do I only encounter them in academia?
by yters 9y ago
If evolutionary algorithms are so magical, why do I only encounter them in academia?
- Jack000 9y agothey're slow and if you had even an approximate analytical solution, you'd use that instead. evolutionary algorithms are used in practice when there is no real alternative. eg. bin packing for CNC/laser machines (self-plug svgnest.com)
- randomsearch 9y agoThey're fairly widely used, but often in places where they are not well publicised - e.g. engineering optimisation or financial trading.
- yters 9y agoMy MSc advisor wrote a big book on multi-objective evolutionary optimization. http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387332543 http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387332543 He liked to have his students compare random search to evolutionary algorithms. There tended to not be a huge difference. I think that's why they are not so widely used when there is any kind of better method around. Probably in most cases you'd want to just understand the domain better. Hence, I don't believe EAs are the next big thing.