Evolved antennas, LLM-generated code, and a potential antifuture

I think about evolved antennas a lot. If you’re not familiar, an evolved antenna is created when you set an evolutionary algorithm on the task of producing a structure that is as efficient at its intended function as possible. Past that there’s no human input, the algorithm just does its thing. It: Modifies elements of the initial design, Evaluates how well the design would perform according to a set of requirements, Adds or discards the changes accordingly, then Repeats until a success threshold has been achieved via iteration. Some evolved antenna practices also create a series of designs in parallel. They then pit the outputs against each other as a final layer of proving out efficacy. This process mimics natural selection. Here, mutations that are beneficial to surviving in an environment are passed through generations. It also creates absolutely wild, alien outputs: Source: Human-Competitive Results: Evolved Antennas for Deployment on NASA’s Space Technology 5 Misson -…