This reminds me of the work of Dr. Adrian Thompson, University of Sussex in the 1990s on artificial evolution in reconfigurable hardware. He programmed FPGAs w

This reminds me of the work of Dr. Adrian Thompson, University of Sussex in the 1990s on artificial evolution in reconfigurable hardware. He programmed FPGAs with genetic algorithms. Some of them were so effective, they contained pins that had no contact with other pins via traces, but still proved necessary for the functionality of the system. The clue was, they were connected via the electromagnetic field of the circuit, or better influenced it in a necessary way. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.50.9691 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.50.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolvable_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolvable_hardware Evolvable Hardware was a shortlived thing in the mid to end 90s. Perhaps some day it will get a second life so to say.