Evolutionary Algorithms Applied to Games

Semester A, 2005-2006

Lecturer: Prof. Moshe Sipper

Course Description

General Reference

• Machine Nature: The Coming Age of Bio-Inspired Computing

Introductory Paper

• Evolutionary Algorithms

Administrative Details

• Web: www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~sipper/courses/atea061/.
• Prerequisite: This course is intended for graduate (MSc) students only.
• Credits: 2.
• Time & Place: Sunday 14:30-16, 90/242
• Grade: 100%: Lecture.
• Notes:
  • Attendance in all talks is obligatory!
    One absence: okay
    Two absences: still okay
    Three absences: did not participate (לא השתתף) 
  • If (#students < #lectures) { Some/All students will lecture twice. }
  • If (#students > #lectures) { Some/All lectures will be delivered in pairs. }

Schedule

• Oct 30: moshe, yonatan (GAs)
• Nov 6: ami (GP)
• Nov 13: vassili (evolving assembly programs)
• Nov 20: assaf (missiles, predator-prey robots)
• Nov 27: dimitri (Go)
• Dec 4: david (backgammon)
• Dec 11: ami (gp-chess)
• Dec 18: leonid (tag, blackjack)
• Dec 25: ziv (Chinook, evolutionary checkers)
• Jan 1: hanukkah
• Jan 8: oz (Real-time neuroevolution in the NERO video game)
• Jan 15: shai (sumobots)
• Jan 22: yonatan (Robocode, RARS)

Papers (tentative)

• CDDNA
• Chinook
• Logistello
• evolving assembly programs: how games help microprocessor validation
• solving go on small boards
• Genetic Programming Produced Competitive Soccer Softbot Teams for RoboCup97, Co-evolving Soccer Softbot Team Coordination with Genetic Programming
• B. D. Bryant and R. Miikkulainen, Neuroevolution for Adaptive Teams, CEC03, 2003
• F. Corno, E. Sanchez, G. Squillero, Exploiting Co-Evolution and a Modified Island Model to Climb the Core War Hill, CEC03, 2003
• D. E. Moriarty and R. Miikkulainen, Discovering Complex Othello Strategies Through Evolutionary Neural Networks, Connection Science, 7(3): 195-209, 1995
• C. W. Reynolds, Competition, Coevolution and the Game of Tag, ALife4, 1994
• D. B. Fogel, Evolving Strategies in Blackjack, CEC04, 2004
• D. B. Fogel and T. J. Hays, D. R. Johnson, A Platform for Evolving Characters in Competitive Games, CEC04, 2004
• K. Chellapilla and D. B. Fogel, Evolving an Expert Checkers Playing Program without Using Human Expertise, IEEE Transaction on Evolutionary Computation, 2001
• N. Richards, D. Moriarty, R. Miikkulainen, Evolving Neural Networks to Play Go, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1998
• A. Lubberts and R. Miikkulainen, Co-Evolving a Go-Playing Neural Network, GECCO-2001, 2001
• P. Maier, Evolution and Coevolution of Artificial Neural Networks playing Go, 2004
• J. B. Pollack & A. D. Blair, Co-Evolution in the Successful Learning of Backgammon Strategy, 1998
• P. J. Darwen, Computationally Intensive and Noisy Tasks: Co-Evolutionary Learning and Temporal Difference Learning on Backgammon, 2000 + Why Co-Evolution beats Temporal Difference learning at Backgammon for a linear architecture, but not a non-linear architecture, 2001