It was hard to predict just how influential the theory of natural selection would be when it first came to a young Charles Darwin in 1837 six months after returning from his pivotal journey on The Beagle.
Scribbling in his journal with the vigor and penmanship of a madman, he drew his first evolutionary tree, with the words “I think” directly above.
Twenty-one years later, On the Origin of Species was published, and the way in which we viewed psychology, philosophy, biology, and our place (or lack thereof) in nature was challenged, and eventually changed, forever.
Evolutionary biology, which found its roots in the proposals of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid 19th century, still is as relevant as it was then. Arguably, it is significantly more relevant as we develop our ability to directly manage and change our DNA, the very backbone of our 3.7 billion year life history.
An overlooked by-product of evolutionary thinking is artificial intelligence, and how we structure artificial intelligence. The fact that we unconsciously create AI in a way that reflect Darwinian ideas can hint to a natural tendency we have to model our creations after evolution, or alternatively, that the best way to solve these sorts of problems is unavoidably Darwinian in nature.
Let’s explore some parallels.

#darwin #machine-learning #natural-selection #artificial-intelligence #evolution