Genetic Algorithms Evolve Simple Solutions Across Industries

As it turns out, survival of the fittest applies as much to algorithms as it does to amoebas, at least when we're talking about genetic algorithms. We recently interviewed Dr. Jay Perrret, CTO of Aria Networks, a company that uses genetic algorithm-based technology for solving some of industry's toughest problems, from optimization of business networks to pinpointing genetic patterns correlated with specific diseases. Dr. Perrett has been working for years in this domain, testing algorithms that use variations of parameters in order to gradually arrive at a best result, when there's no simple way to program a solution. In this episode, Dr. Perrett discusses how genetic algorithms (GA) work and ways that they can be tested and applied in a business context. He provides two very useful case studies, including a recent example with Facebook that involved planning out an optimal (and massive) data network.