Very cool stuff. I have often thought that as long as one can find an appropriate "fitness function", that genetic algorithms of one form or another ought to be

Very cool stuff. I have often thought that as long as one can find an appropriate "fitness function", that genetic algorithms of one form or another ought to be able to solve a wide-range of problems. Of course, finding a "fitness function" implies "knowing the answer ahead of time". This is often far from obvious. I am thinking genetic programming is a good solution to dating websites - the "roomate matching" problem is the sort of problem a genetic algorithm can attack, and of course "dating" is a subset of that same problem. User feedback would be critical in terms of designing such a solution, and that can be unreliable, subjective, etc. But still, a fairly straightforward genetic algorithm to match people up based on characteristics seems plausible. Puts a whole new spin on divorce suits: Your Honor, HAL 9000 said we would be a good match! He lied! I need 25% of his bandwidth for compensation! :-)