Ah. So sad I am getting to read this debate so long after the fact. I can see really useful points on both sides, but thus far Robin does not seem to realize that the universe has been running a terrible genetic algorithm for millions of years in Matlab on a computer with nearly zero RAM. FOOM'd AI, even if using the same crappy genetic algorithm, would be like dropping it into a brand new 10GHZ processor with 100GB RAM and re-writing it all in optimized C++. And then if you learn from genetic algorithms how to start making legitimate optimization methods for intelligent agents, it's a whole different ball of wax. The categorical type of advantage one can hold over peers isn't even on the radar screen in terms of human kind's knowledge of social science.