Salon.com > Alexis Willihnganz http://www.salon.com Mon, 28 May 2012 00:30:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Software that writes software http://www.salon.com/1999/08/10/genetic_programming/ http://www.salon.com/1999/08/10/genetic_programming/#comments Tue, 10 Aug 1999 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/1999/08/10/genetic_programming On a surface the size of a ping-pong table, five canister-shaped robots whir, click and interact, fighting for control of a bright orange golf ball. These robots are soccer players, competitors in RoboCup, the Robot World Cup Initiative, which was created in 1993 to promote research into robotics and artificial intelligence. Even its creators admit that its goal -- to develop a robot soccer team that can beat a human world championship team -- is ambitious. But they claim that RoboCup is a landmark project, similar to the Apollo space program, an engineering challenge that will push the creation of new, "breakthrough technologies."

Ironically, some of the robots themselves were created by computer ingenuity. RoboCup hosts competition in three leagues: small-size, medium-size and simulation. For now, these computer-created robots are playing in the simulation league -- as purely software creations, they compete only on a computer screen. But they are playing as well as many of their man-made peers.

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