A game-theoretic memory mechanism for coevolution

  • Authors:

  • Sevan G. Ficici;Jordan B. Pollack

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts;Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

  • Venue:
  • GECCO'03 Proceedings of the 2003 international conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation: PartI
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

One problem associated with coevolutionary algorithms is that of forgetting, where one ot more previously acquired traits are lost only to be needed later. We introduce a new coevolutionary memory mechanism to help prevent forgetting that is built upon game-theoretic principles, specifically Nash equilibrium. This "Nash memory" mechanism has the following properties: 1) It accumulates a collection of salient traits discovered by search, and represent this collection as a mixed strategy. 2) This mixed strategy monotonically approaches the quality of a Nash equilibrium strategy as search processes, thus acting as a "ratchet" mechanism. 3) The memory naturally embodies the result (solution) obtained by the coevolutionary process, 4) The memory appropriately handles intransitive cycles (subject to resource limitations). We demonstrate our Nash memory using Watson and Pollack's intransitive numbers game, and compare its performance to the conventional "Hall of Frame" memory and the more recently proposed Dominance Tournament.