Hands-On Neuroevolution with Python

Novelty Search and natural evolution

By looking at how natural selection works in the physical world, we can see that the enabling force behind evolutionary diversity is a search for novelty. In other words, any evolving species gains immediate evolutionary advantages over its rivals by finding new behavior patterns. This allows them to exploit the environment more efficiently. The natural evolution has no defined goals, and it broadens the solution search space by rewarding the exploration and exploitation of novel behaviors. This novelty can be considered as a proxy for many hidden creative forces in the natural world, which allows evolution to elaborate on even more complex behaviors and biological structures.

Taking inspiration from the ...