CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR 2010
HUMIES
$10,000 in PRIZES AT
THE 7th ANNUAL (2010) “HUMIES” AWARDS
FOR HUMAN-COMPETITIVE RESULTS
PRODUCED BY GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION
HELD AT THE
GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE (GECCO)
ON JULY 7–11, 2010 IN PORTLAND, OREGON
Last updated October 12, 2011
Techniques of genetic and evolutionary computation are being increasingly applied
to difficult real-world problems — often yielding results that are not merely
academically interesting, but competitive with the work done by creative and
inventive humans. Starting at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
Conference (GECCO) in
Entries are hereby solicited for awards totaling $10,000 for the 2010 awards for human-competitive results that have been produced by any form of genetic and evolutionary computation (including, but not limited to genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, learning classifier systems, grammatical evolution, gene expression programming, differential evolution, etc.) and that have been published in the open literature between the deadline for the previous competition and the deadline for the current competition.
This prize competition is based on published results. The publication may be a paper at the GECCO conference (i.e., regular paper, poster paper, or any other full-length paper), a paper published anywhere in the open literature (e.g., another conference, journal, technical report, thesis, book chapter, book), or a paper in final form that has been unconditionally accepted by a publication and is “in press” (that is, the entry must be identical to something that will be published imminently. The publication may not be an intermediate or draft version that is still subject to change or revision by the authors or editors. The publication must meet the usual standards of a scientific publication in that is must clearly describe a problem, the methods used to address the problem, the results obtained, and sufficient information to enable the work described to be replicated by an independent person.
An automatically created result is considered “human-competitive” if it satisfies at least one of the eight criteria below.
(A)
The result was patented as an invention in the past, is an improvement over a
patented invention, or would qualify today as a patentable new invention.
(B)
The result is equal to or better than a result that was accepted as a new
scientific result at the time when it was published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal.
(C)
The result is equal to or better than a result that was placed into a database
or archive of results maintained by an internationally recognized panel of
scientific experts.
(D)
The result is publishable in its own right as a new scientific result ¾ independent of the fact that the result
was mechanically created.
(E)
The result is equal to or better than the most recent human-created solution to
a long-standing problem for which there has been a succe
(F)
The result is equal to or better than a result that was considered an
achievement in its field at the time it was first discovered.
(G)
The result solves a problem of indisputable difficulty in its field.
(H)
The result holds its own or wins a regulated competition involving human
contestants (in the form of either live human players or human-written computer
programs).
Contestants should note that a pervasive thread in most of the above eight criteria
is the notion that the result satisfy an “arms
length” standard—not a yardstick based on the opinion of the author, the
author’s own institution (educational
or corporate), or the author’s close a
Cash prizes of $5,000 (gold), $3,000 (silver), and bronze (either one prize
of $2,000 or two prizes of $1,000) will be awarded for the best entries that satisfy the criteria for human-competitivene
The competition will be held as part of the 2010 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference. Presentations of entries will be made at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO). The awards and prizes will be announced and presented during the GECCO conference.
The judging committee is
· Wolfgang Banzhaf
· Erik Goodman
· John R. Koza
· Riccardo Poli
· Darrell Whitley
Monday May 31, 2010 — Entries (consisting of one TEXT file and one or more PDF files) are due by e-mail
Monday June 21, 2010 — Finalists will be notified by e-mail
Wednesday June 30, 2010 — Finalists must submit their presentation to (e.g., PowerPoint, PDF) for posting on competition web site
July 7–11, 2010 — Dates for the 2010 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference
Friday July 9, 2010 (TENTATIVE) — Presentations before judging committee at public session at GECCO conference
Sunday July 11, 2010 (TENTATIVE) — Announcement of awards at morning plenary session of GECCO conference
If you plan to
If you plan to
The deadline for entries is Monday May 31, 2010.
All entries are to be sent electronically to koza at human-competitive dot org.
All entries will be promptly acknowledged, so please make an
inquiry if you do not receive an acknowledgment.
An entry must consist of one TEXT file and one or more PDF files. If the same authors are making multiple entries, please submit separate e-mails, each containing both the TEXT and PDF file(s) supporting the entry.
The TEXT file must contain the following nine items. Please be very careful to include ALL required information. Contestants are alerted to the fact that items 6 and 9 are especially important and will be the main basis by which entries will be judged.
(1) the
complete title of one (or more) paper(s) published in the open literature
describing the work that the author claims describes a human-competitive result,
(2) the
name, complete physical mailing addre
(3) the
name of the co
(4) the
abstract of the paper(s),
(5) a list containing one or
more of the eight letters (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, or H) that co
(6) a
statement stating why the result satisfies the criteria that the contestant
claims (see examples
of statements of human-competitiveness as
a guide to aid in constructing this part of the submi
(7) a full citation of the paper
(that is, author names; publication date; name of journal, conference,
technical report, thesis, book, or book chapter; name of editors, if
applicable, of the journal or edited book; publisher name; publisher city; page
numbers, if applicable);
(8) a
statement either that “any prize money, if any, is to be divided equally among
the co-authors” OR a specific percentage breakdown as to how the prize money,
if any, is to be divided among the co-authors; and
(9) a
statement stating why the judges should consider the entry as “best” in comp
The PDF file(s) are to contain the paper(s). The strongly preferred method is that you send a separate PDF file for each of your paper(s) relating to your entry. Both the text file and the PDF file(s) for each entry will be permanently posted on a web page shortly after the deadline date for entries (for use by the judges, conference attendees, and anyone else who is interested) and will remain posted on the web as a permanent record of the competition. If your paper is available on your publisher’s web site and your publisher specifically requires that your published paper may only appear only on your own personal page, the second choice is that you send link(s) to a separate web page on your web site containing link(s) to the PDF file(s) of the paper(s) that constitute your entry. This separate web page is to contain nothing else, so the interested parties may quickly locate your paper(s). If you use this second-choice option, you must ALSO supply a link to a permanent web site maintained by your publisher where your specific paper may be viewed or purchased (that is, not a link merely to the publisher’s general home page, but a link to the specific web page containing your paper on the publisher’s site). The objective, in each case, is to provide a permanent record of the entries and to make it easy for anyone to locate the entries.
The judging committee will
review all entries and identify a short list of approximately
6–10 finalists for presentation at the
GECCO conference. Finalists will be notified by Monday June 21, 2010 by an e-mail to the corresponding
author. Finalists must then
Finalists must submit a presentation in the form of a PowerPoint file or a PDF file by Wednesday June 30, 2010 by e-mail to koza at human-competitive dot org. These presentations will be added to the web page for the competition so that the judging committee (and conference attendees and anyone else who is interested) may preview the submissions prior to the oral presentations.
At the GECCO conference, there will be short oral presentations by the
finalists to the judging committee. The amount of time available will be
announced, but will in the neighborhood of 8 to 15 minutes. The presentations
will be open to all conference attendees at a special se
The presenting author for each entry must register for the GECCO conference.
Authors generally enter their own work; however, a person may
No prize may be awarded to anyone closely a
· For information about the annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) operated by the Association for Computing Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO)
· For information about the annual Human-Competitive Awards (the “humies”) in genetic and evolutionary computation offered at the annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO)
· The home page of Genetic Programming Inc. at www.genetic-programming.com.
· The home page of John R. Koza (including online versions of most published papers)
·
For information about John Koza’s course on genetic
algorithms and genetic programming at Stanford University
·
For information about Electoral College reform and
National Popular Vote
· Information about the 1992
book Genetic
Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection,
the 1994 book Genetic
Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs, the 1999
book Genetic
Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving, and the
2003 book Genetic
Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive
Machine Intelligence. Click here to read chapter 1 of Genetic
Programming IV book in PDF format.
· 5,000+
published papers on genetic programming in a searchable bibliography
(with many on-line versions of papers) by over 880 authors maintained by
William Langdon’s and Steven M. Gustafson.
· For information on the Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines journal
· For information on the Genetic Programming book series, see the Call For Book Proposals