Creative Evolutionary Systems

Edited by Peter Bentley and David Corne
2002, Academic Press, San Diego
571 pp, illus. B/w & col.
ISBN 1-55860-673-4

Reviewed by Robert Pepperell

The question of how technology might intervene in human creative processes, and whether indeed it may surpass or supplant human creativity, has been a recurring theme during the rapid assimilation of computer systems into the creative arena since the 1980s. Because market economics habitually seeks more efficiency in production, it would seem inevitable that the costly vicissitudes and unpredictable temperaments of the artist, designer or composer would be ripe for automation. Classical AI methods having been shown as too brittle and clumsy, researchers have increasingly turned to ‘natural’ principles of data generation and manipulation to make progress.

The two principles that guide ‘creative evolution’, the subject of this book, are the same as those generally understood to apply to natural evolution, namely variation and selection. In the case of creative evolution the principles are applied deliberately with the intention of using computers to generate output of artistic, musical or design value, often as a way of shortcutting or circumventing the rather laborious and haphazard process of human creative production. As the editors put it:

" Our evolutionary techniques are being used to automatically find solutions to problems that traditionally required creative people. Using evolution, our computers are beginning to find inventive, novel, surprising, and exciting solutions. Creative evolutionary systems both help us to be creative and give the appearance of being creative themselves." (p. xxvii)

Here, the editors have gathered what they regard as a definitive collection of papers covering the current state of research in the field, drawing on a varied panel of technologists, theorists and creative practitioners. The volume runs to nearly 600 pages and features essays by some 50 contributors who, in different ways, describe the methods by which computational processes can be harnessed to creative ends. Most of the contributions outline how techniques of inducing random variation can be combined with selection, often through the subjective intervention of a human agent or operators, to arrive at some otherwise improbable outcome, be it urban architecture, fractal-based Iris prints, novel fighter pilot manoeuvres, electromechanical robots, or musical compositions.

Well illustrated, indexed and with an accompanying CD-Rom, this would seem to be a definitive text in this field.