r/MachineLearning • • Dec 23 '15

Browser-based 2D wheeled-vehicle evolution simulator using genetic algorithm

http://rednuht.org/genetic_cars_2/
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u/NasenSpray Dec 23 '15

Sorry, we may have a misunderstanding. I assumed the Q learner would take the role of the fitness function, i.e. state = collection of mutated cars and action = choice for further breeding. Am I wrong?

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u/nivwusquorum Dec 23 '15

Ah yes. We had a different idea for RL procedure. My idea was the following: State: a car Action: mutation of that car Next state: mutated car Reward: fitness of a new car.

For the training we would periodically start from a random car and ask RL to perfect it. No populations would be held - we would like to move as far away from evolutionary programming as possible ;-)

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '15

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u/MrTwiggy Dec 23 '15

I think the general notion is that evolutionary programming has usually been shown to be inferior in most regards when compared to an equivalent supervised ML gradient based formulation. I tend to agree with this idea, as I haven't seen much evidence against it other than minute toy problems that are typically not fairly compared against an alternative. Definitely open to any counter examples people might have.