Human-based evolutionary computation: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:59, 17 May 2010

Revision as of 19:09, 28 May 2010

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===Human-based evolution strategy===

In this context and maybe generally, the Wikipedia software is the best illustration of a working human-based evolution strategy wherinwherein the (targetted) evolution of any given page comprises the fine tuning of the knowledge base of such information that relates to that page. Traditional [[evolution strategy]] has three operators: initialization, mutation, and selection. In the case of Wikipedia, the initialization operator is page creation, the mutation operator is incremental page editing. The selection operator is less salient. It is provided by the revision history and the ability to select among all previous revisions via a revert operation. If the page is vandalised and no longer a good fit to its title, a reader can easily go to the revision history and select one of the previous revisions that fits best (hopefully, the previous one). This selection feature is crucial to the success of the Wikipedia.

An interesting fact is that the original wiki software was created in 1995, but it took at least another six years for large wiki-based collaborative projects to appear. Why did it take so long? One explanation is that the original wiki software lacked a selection operation and hence couldn't effectively support content evolution. The addition of revision history and the rise of large wiki-supported communities coincide in time. From an evolutionary computation point of view, this is not surprising: without a selection operation the content would undergo an aimless [[genetic drift]] and would unlikely to be useful to anyone. That is what many people expected from Wikipedia at its inception. However, with a selection operation, the utility of content has a tendency to improve over time as beneficial changes accumulate. This is what actually happens on a large scale in Wikipedia.