The Result

Genetic programming evolved the topology and sizing of an amplifier circuit with low distortion incorporating negative feedback as described in Chapter 14 of Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence (Koza, Keane, Streeter, Mydlowec, Yu, and Lanza 2003).

BBB3901

Basis for Claim of Human-Competitiveness

Harold S. Black of AT&T received U.S. patents 2,003,282 (Black 1935), 2,102,670 (Black 1937a), and 2,102,671 (Black 1937b) relating to his work on the problem of reducing distortion in amplifiers by means of negative feedback.

The genetically evolved amplifier circuit has low distortion and incorporates negative feedback.

Referring to the eight criteria in table 1.2 of Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence (Koza, Keane, Streeter, Mydlowec, Yu, and Lanza 2003) for establishing that an automatically created result is competitive with a human-produced result, the rediscovery by genetic programming of negative feedback for reducing amplifier distortion satisfies the following four of the eight criteria:

(A) The result was patented as an invention in the past, is an improvement over a patented invention, or would qualify today as a patentable new invention.

(E) The result is equal to or better than the most recent human-created solution to a long-standing problem for which there has been a succession of increasingly better human-created solutions.

(F) The result is equal to or better than a result that was considered an achievement in its field at the time it was first discovered.

(G) The result solves a problem of indisputable difficulty in its field.

The rediscovery by genetic programming of negative feedback for reducing amplifier distortion came over seven decades after Black took his now-famous ride on the Lackawanna Ferry. Nonetheless, the fact that the original human-conceived solution to the problem (eventually) satisfied the Patent Office’s criteria for patent-worthiness means that the genetically evolved duplicate would also have satisfied the Patent Office’s criteria for patent-worthiness (if only it had arrived before Black took his ferryboat ride).

References

Black, Harold S. 1935. Wave Translation System. U.S. patent 2,003,282. Filed August 8, 1928. Issued June 4, 1935.

Black, Harold S. 1937a. Wave Translation System. U.S. patent 2,102,670. Filed August 8, 1928. Issued December 21, 1937.

Black, Harold S. 1937b. Wave Translation System. U.S. patent 2,102,671. Filed April 22, 1932. Issued December 21, 1937.

Black, Harold S. 1977. Inventing the negative feedback amplifier. IEEE Spectrum. December 1977. Pages 55–60.

Koza, John R., Keane, Martin A., Streeter, Matthew J., Mydlowec, William, Yu, Jessen, and Lanza, Guido. 2003. Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Lee, Thomas H. 1998. The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

· The home page of Genetic Programming Inc. at www.genetic-programming.com.

· For information about the field of genetic programming and the field of genetic and evolutionary computation, visit www.genetic-programming.org

· The home page of John R. Koza at Genetic Programming Inc. (including online versions of most published papers) and the home page of John R. Koza at Stanford University

· For information about John Koza’s course on genetic algorithms and genetic programming at Stanford University

· Information about the 1992 book Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection, the 1994 book Genetic Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs, the 1999 book Genetic Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving, and the 2003 book Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence. Click here to read chapter 1 of Genetic Programming IV book in PDF format.

· 3,440 published papers on genetic programming (as of November 28, 2003) in a searchable bibliography (with many on-line versions of papers) by over 880 authors maintained by William Langdon’s and Steven M. Gustafson.

· For information on the Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines journal published by Kluwer Academic Publishers

· For information on the Genetic Programming book series from Kluwer Academic Publishers, see the Call For Book Proposals

· For information about the annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference (which includes the annual GP conference) to be held on June 26–30, 2004 (Saturday – Wednesday) in Seattle and its sponsoring organization, the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (ISGEC). For information about the annual Euro-Genetic-Programming Conference to be held on April 5-7, 2004 (Monday – Wednesday) at the University of Coimbra in Coimbra Portugal. For information about the 2003 and 2004 Genetic Programming Theory and Practice (GPTP) workshops held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For information about Asia-Pacific Workshop on Genetic Programming (ASPGP03) held in Canberra, Australia on December 8, 2003. For information about the annual NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware Conference (EH) to be held on June 24-26 (Thursday-Saturday), 2004 in Seattle.

Last updated on December 27, 2003