timtyler comments on Holden's Objection 1: Friendliness is dangerous - Less Wrong

11 Post author: PhilGoetz 18 May 2012 12:48AM

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Comment author: timtyler 18 May 2012 11:58:25PM *  1 point [-]

Probably Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems. Here's Holland's most famous theorem in the area. It doesn't suggest genetic algorithms make for some kind of optimal search - indeed, classical genetic algorithms are a pretty stupid sort of search.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 02 July 2012 01:17:27AM *  0 points [-]

That is the book. I"m referring to the entire contents of chapters 5-7. The schema theorem is used in chapter 7, but it's only part of the entire argument, which does show that genetic algorithms approach optimal distribution of trials among the different possibilities, for a specific definition of optimal, which is not easy to parse out of Holland's book, due to his failure to give an overview or decent summary of what he is doing. It doesn't say anything about other forms of search that proceed other than by taking a big set of possible answers, which give stochastic results when tested, and allocating trials among them.