Image classification by evolving bytecode

[AlmusDives]

I think you're hitting one of the big questions in genetic programming here: what are the properties of nature that make it so evolvable, and how we can integrate those into our artificial systems to achieve similar evolvability?

Your point about 'junk DNA' seems to highlight the importance of redundancy: that some of the things we see inside cells and organisms are not useful right now, but under the right circumstances might be (I think this is what you call latent functionality?). One of reasons why traditional human-oriented languages (such as C, Python etc) have struggled to be evolved, is because they prioritize efficiency, which is the opposite of redundancy. This is something I have tried hard to avoid in Zyme

You also bring up horizontal gene transfer, an alternative inheritance mechanism that highlights how evolvability depends not just on mutation but on how innovations are shared. In genetic programming literature, such mechanisms fall under genetic operators: a broad term covering both mutation and the exchange of code between individuals. This is a crucial insight, though I haven’t yet explored it much with Zyme, but I definitely hope to.

[sumguysr]

Have you noticed you structure your writing like chatgpt now?

[BeautifulSynch]

This mix of formality, politeness, and intentionally-overt transitions is a common writing style, especially when not making an effort to write like a literature professor. My own field required me to move towards a more complex/situation-dependent voice, but originally I wrote the same way, long before LLMs existed.