A Bright Future For Soft Computing

Interesting this article here: Rebirthing HAL.

I think I have been hearing the very same arguments since my first days -- and even earlier -- as a freshman at my former university.

Evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, and others bio-inspired approaches are just profound simplifications of real systems. Don't expect them, at least in the near future, to replicate what their real counterparts do.

Soviet Professor Joins The Timeline Of Evolutionary Computation

Breaking News

The Soviet evolutionary computation researcher and pioneer, Professor Trollov Buraninev, has been endowed into the Evolutionary Computation Timeline. His pioneer work on the theory of evolutionary algorithms was started much earlier than his Western nemesis' researchers on the same field. A list with some achievements by Professor Buraninev:

1. The Schema Theorem
2. The Building Block Hypothesis
3. The Theory Of Evolution Strategies
4. The First Evolutionary Programming Implementation
5. Genetic Programming

Of course, there are many others. The list above is just some of his breakthroughs.

Professor Buraninev states his work is much better and general than "those stuffs made by mainstream German and American researchers! I found a way to optimize any kind of function under any conditions without calculating the covariance matrix or any quasi-Newton-like approach!".

What about Bayesian approaches? Professor Buraninev is categoric: "Bayesian approaches are for n00bs! I like this Western fad of writing words using numbers rather than the letters themselves! I learned it with my would-be girlfriend! If were not for that Californian guy who fooled me, now I would be dating a checkers master girl! Concerning Bayesian approaches, well... In Soviet Russia you can know a posteriori probabilities even without knowing any a priori odds! And vice-versa!"

The director of the American part of the Antarctica special evolutionary computation laboratory, Professor Pangloss Van Thunder-ten-Tronckh, states: "Professor Buraninev's achievement is the direct result of the ice mapping of Antarctica we have been doing since early 1970s. We applied our very special evolutionary algorithm to perform that task. Below, there is the final map we got after some simulation years."

Professor Van Thunder-ten-Tronckh claims that "what you mainstream climate researchers have been argued as global warming is just the work of our team to take some ice from Antarctica and use it in our evening drink parties. The ice sheet shrinking of Antarctica is not more than our continuous 'work' at that continent. There is no global warming! I know this is an inconvenient truth..."

Professor Van Thunder-ten-Tronckh and Buraninev showed us some footage of their Antarctica research place. In the words of Professor Van Thunder-ten-Tronckh: "This footage proves that our laboratory is 100% real! We have been not involved in mainstream evolutionary computation journals because our funding came from CIA and the former KGB and these malevolent agencies forbade us of publishing our work! This picture below shows our supercomputer Metroidska Oblast 5000 proving that P = NP."

"On the faraway foreground, there is our private satellite for cable TV and other 'secret' stuffs, such as the Russian Brides Channel and the Poker Channel."

"This one is very interesting! Our secret satellite is sending us our daily work schedule. Proving that P = NP, making record complexity time algorithms, and answering the Big Question Of The Universe are common tasks we are used to do."

"Here, Professor Buraninev is looking for the aforementioned daily schedule. An uncommon sight, since it is usually done by our grad students and other slaves workers."

"This one shows Professor Buraninev just after having found our daily schedule."

"This one is extremely interesting! It probably shows some Western evolutionary computation researcher trying to take off from us our plans and techniques! I don't know why those guys wear boots that leave strange words printed on snow, such as deg511, HPS, jmerelo and so on!"

"These ones are our slaves grad students crew. They are enjoying their weekly five minutes spare time looking up to the sky -- it's a hobby of theirs! These guys are amazing!"

"The last ones show our main lab site. In this place so many evolutionary computation revolutions took place! It's a pity we have never been allowed to publish our findings... But one day we will be acknowledged as we deserve!"

After all these years, what are the plans of those two pioneers? Let them reply! Professor Pangloss Van Thunder-ten-Tronckh states: "I'm thinking of retiring... I'm tired of doing such a tremendous contributions to evolutionary computation without any sign of acknowledgement! I'll buy a beautiful house at Vladvostok Station  or at Nunavut to spend my Summer time there!"

The Soviet evolutionary computation genius, Professor Buraninev, has a different feeling: "The joint evolutionary computation mission made possible to me to have contact with the business friendly ideas from American society. Therefore, I'll invest my money on a start-up bussiness of Russian Brides! Any man will be able to find a Russian bride through evolutionary computation. I'll use all my knowledge to make possible to every man in this planet to marry a Sharapova-like woman!"

The Antarctic evolutionary computation lab is taking a day off to celebrate this date.