P.I.C.A.E.
When Yoshida was facing the monitor in one of the plots of his workplace, Nelson's face suddenly appeared on the huge monitor on the wall. Nelson smiled at Yoshida and Crane in the box next to him. "Hey, are you at work?" "What is it for?" Crane stood up in a hurry. "I'm relieved that the EOS program is finally complete." "It's good." "But why are you guys who have no work right now and are so busy shut up in the box?" With that said, Nelson smiled with a pockmarked face. "Ehehehe" Crane and Yoshida smiled. "Come out without hiding" When Nelson urged him, Ganymede hidden under the desk appeared next to Crane. And Lee appeared next to Yoshida. "Sorry, I'm sorry. We just got married." Crane hugged Ganymede and turned red. "Fufufu, --- what about you?" Nelson turned to Yoshida and Lee. "We just got engaged" Nelson in the monitor looked up at the sky and sighed. "Well, I'll overlook this time. If you flirt at work next time, you'll be fired." "Oh, OK" "By the way, Mr. Yoshida" "What?" "Your average daily working time is about an hour." "Buh!" Yoshida put his head on the desk. Lee made a dissatisfied face. "In principle, you are to be fired and executed as a salary thief, but for some reason you are doing all the work you've been given, so I'll overlook it." "Thank you" Nelson's face on the monitor became more and more magnificent. Nelson's huge face, now about 5 meters in diameter, stared at Yoshida with warm eyes. "I'm sure there's something to hide why that's possible. Please confess. Hmm?" Yoshida and Lee looked at each other. Lee shrugged. "I can't help it. I confess." "Yeah, it's okay to be honest. Just say it." "I'm a genius of programming." Nelson's face stiffened with a smile on his face. Crane cleared his throat. "Well, you were a great genius who could finish a 10-hour job in 1 hour, and in the brilliant case, only 5 minutes." Crane hurriedly stopped from blowing out. "By the way, what is the PICAE you are using?" "Ah, did you look into my computer?" "Obviously, every Union computer monitors its career. It's all clear who is playing the game right now. You use a tool called PICAE to create all your programs. It's amazingly efficient. Immediately send the tool to me and create and submit a detailed manual on how to use it. " "I can't" "This is an order" "What should I do?" Yoshida asked Lee. "It can't be helped. Why don't you explain in detail?" Yoshida turned to Nelson again. "Okay, I'll give it to you. However, this program is quite dangerous to handle. That's why I kept it secret. I'll tell you why. I'd like to meet in person and explain in detail. If possible. I want you to have an excellent programmer who understands the technical story. " "Okay, I'm going over there now. The best programmers in the union and the second best are both there. Lee and Newton."
Yoshida called Newton, who had gone fishing. As Yoshida and others were waiting at work, Nelson appeared with Crane. Nelson sat down on a chair in the box. "Then, Mr. Yoshida, get started." Yoshida decided to explain PICAE. Nelson, Newton, and Crane were curiously sitting in front of Yoshida. "PICAE is a program that applies genetic programming, as explained. As the name implies, genetic programming is an ancient method developed by modeling evolution in living organisms. However, it has some drawbacks and has been almost forgotten these days. To explain the principle, we start with a simple prototype, mutate the program itself in a way similar to mutation and mating of biological genes, select it by the evaluation function, and select a more suitable program. Then, they are further mutated and mated, and evolved until they reach a certain level. Do you understand so far? " "I don't know at all," Nelson closed his eyes and shook his head. Newton interrupted. "Ignore and continue" "To put it simply, think of the mechanism of evolution of living things as it is incorporated into the computer space. However, in this case, instead of selecting by natural selection, it is selected by a certain goal setting called an evaluation function. What's more, you can create a large number of offspring at once in computer space at high speed and get the program you want. This is PICAE, Programming Introducer by Computer Aided Evolution. "
"GuWah!" Nelson leaned his head against the back of the chair and began to snore. "I know that we used that method a long time ago, but no one is using it now. Why is it obsolete?" Newton asked. "The reason why no one uses it is because it has a big drawback. It is a so-called vulnerability problem. The computer space is all digital. There are no analog numbers. There is a big drawback. The program itself consists of a one-dimensional sequence of numbers. It is the same for living things in nature, that is, DNA. Problems occur when mutated or mated. In the case of a program, mutation or deletion of only one numerical value has a severe effect. In extreme cases it will not work at all. However, such a thing does not happen in the natural world. why? Do you know? " Both Newton and Crane shook their heads. Nelson was already in a good sleep mode. "In the case of DNA, the read information is translated into amino acids by ribosomes via RNA. In that case, it is the amino acids that change. Replacing or removing that amino acid with another amino acid does not make much of a difference. why? " "I do not know" "That is because amino acids have a three-dimensional structure." "Oh I see" "In other words, because they are translating one-dimensional information into three-dimensional information with a greater degree of freedom, they are spared severe mutations due to very small mutations. Abstractly speaking, we can call it a translation from digital space to topology space. " "I don't understand well." "That's why I reproduced it in computer space. In other words, I have developed a method of translating digital information from one dimension to a higher dimension, selecting it with an evaluation function, and then returning it to the original one-dimensional information. However, that alone still had problems. guess what? " "I don't know, just say it without messing around." "It's a matter of maximum optimum value. In other words, in terms of living things, the problem is to create the best individual that suits the environment. To give an easy-to-understand example, let's say you have a table with bumps here and there. The goal is to find the most dented part. Let's say you started somewhere on the table at random. And what do you think will happen, if you gradually choose a better place, that is, a deeper place, and proceed? " "Well, it'll go to the bottom of the hole nearby." "That's right, and It rarely goes to the deepest part of the table. In other words, we can only reach the local optimum value. " "So that's it" "Then what should I do?" "That is what I want to know" "In the end, you have no choice but to explore the entire table." "Then it would be horribly uneconomical." "Therefore I thought" "OK, give me answer quickly." "The answer is modularization. In fact, this is exactly the way living things are doing." "Oh?" "An easy-to-understand example is the porphyrin ring. This is a special form of structure that traps essential metals in a usable form. It is used everywhere, including hemoglobin, a blood pigment, cytochrome, an oxido-reductase, and chlorophyll, a chloroplast, in most living things, from bacteria to whales " "And What?" It's called "reuse". If you find that you can use it, use it thoroughly. As a dark box or black box that has been improved to the optimum state and used by everybody everywhere. In another word , It is called "module". Subroutines in the program " "Oh I see" "We will create new modules by further combining usable modules. And make it even higher dimension, and continue it further and further. This is the strategy that living things have adopted. Unbelievably, it turns out that this method can search most of the search space. In other words, in the case of the table I mentioned earlier, you can explore the entire table. And it is my PICAE that applied it to the computer space. " Newton and Crane stayed vacantly for a while. "Fuga!" Nelson woke up with his snoring. "Hmm? Is it over?" "I understand, it's pretty good. Is there any problem with it?" Newton asked. "There is a big problem. The problem is that this is a program that borrows the entire evolutionary mechanism of living things. " "And?" "That is, depending on the evaluation function, this program can make out Outrageous object." Nelson entered the deep sleep mode again just by heard the evaluation function. "Maybe self-renewal?" The crane, which had been silent until then, opened his mouth. "That's right" Yoshida smiled. "What you mean is, if we set PICAE's own regeneration and proliferation in the evaluation function, it would be dangerous one?" "Yes, in that case, there is a risk that the program will evolve on its own. In other words, it's an evolving computer virus. " "What the hell is that?" Newton asked again. "I can't imagine. Until now, various artificial lives have been created besides viruses. However, even if they mutated, they only degenerated. The most efficient way to grow is to parasitize other organisms. Evolution and degeneration are completely different dimensions. As it evolves, it acquires new traits. Maybe it does just increase and is harmless, or it can also be a ferocious virus that can cause damage everywhere. I didn't want to give it to anyone because of that danger. " "Well, if you spread it out to everyone, someone might try it secretly. All right. After all, we should investigate the danger of it carefully. If you lend it to me, I'll self-proliferate it in an environment disconnected from the net and check if it's dangerous. " "OK, let's do that." Newton pinched Nelson's nose, sleeping soundly. "GuWahh!" Nelson jumped up. "Who is the one who want to kill me!" "It's over" Newton bluntly said. "Well,then, what happened?" "I will check the problems of PICAE. If I find that there are no problems, we will give it to everyone. Of course, Yoshida will be paid a decent reward from Union. Is it OK?" Newton looked around everyone. Nelson and Yoshida nodded. "OK. Do it." Lee said. "That sounds interesting. Isaac, let me do it with you." "Yeah, let's do it together"
That night, Lee stayed alone at work and was typing in Pika's program. He was a little tired so he quit the program. Pika was jumping in the monitor. When Lee was staring at him with his head on his chair, Pika told Lee." "Are you tired? " "Yup" Lee said so, closed his eyes and returned his head to the chair. And then he jumped up. "How did you find out?" "Because you are leaning back on your chair." "You can see it from there?" Pika nodded. And Pika put his finger in front of his mouth. "Don't tell anyone about this." "Maybe Yoshida doesn't even know this?" Pika nodded again. Lee opened his mouth and scratched his head. Then he came up with something and went somewhere and came back with a small disc. And he put it in his computer. "What are you doing?" "I'm looking into the 'you' that Yoshida gave me a long time ago and the current 'you'.---- Oh, it's still quite different." "Isn't it?" Pika said so and slammed his small tongue. Lee stared at Pika. "Maybe ----" "Ehehehe" "Have you evolved yourself?" "A little bit ---" "How?" "I wanted to know what was going on outside this box, so I wondered what was going on." "you made it possible to look out from inside?" Pika smiled and nodded. Lee swallowed a lot of spit. "Maybe you want to get out of there?" Pika shook his head. "I want to go out, but I can't do that, unfortunately--" Lee sighed relievedly. "Please, don't evolve yourself anymore." "Yeah, this is a secret to everyone instead." "all right" "Instead, play with me from time to time." "OK"