What Is Genetic Algorithm?

Genetic algorithms are a mighty tool for solving big problems. They're like the supermodels of the AI world—they're fast, thoughtful, and know how to get things done. Genetic algorithms are based on the theory of natural selection and evolution. They work by generating many different solutions to a problem and then creating new variations of those solutions based on which ones work best. In other words, they're like your old high school boyfriend: they pick themselves up by their bootstraps (or whatever). Genetic algorithms solve complex optimization problems by exploring large data sets without getting stuck in local optima. They also tend to be more robust than other methods because they don't require any assumptions about how the problem works or what the solution should look like—they just let nature do its thing! Like any other computer program, a genetic algorithm (GA) is designed to solve a problem. It uses techniques inspired by evolutionary biologies, such as selection, mutation, inheritance and recombination. The most commonly employed method in genetic algorithms is randomly creating a group of individuals from a given population. The individuals thus formed are evaluated with the help of the evaluation function provided by the programmer. Individuals are then given a score that indirectly highlights their fitness for the situation. The best two individuals are then used to create one or more offspring, after which random mutations are done on the offspring. On an individual level, genetic algorithms perform operations like a crossover (similar to sexual reproduction) and transformation (which can be compared to genetic mutations). Crossover involves combining parts from different individuals, and mutating involves randomly modifying portions of an individual's DNA. These operations ensure that individual solutions will vary in quality over time because if there were no variation, all solutions would eventually converge towards optimal ones that would not necessarily be practical for all problems at hand!