On: Bitcoin-using Autonomous Agents

[ktizo]

any truly autonomous agent would be out-competed by one that has a human in the loop modifying the code to adapt to the market

Not necessarily, you could have a self modifying agent using genetic algorithms that could develop quicker than having a coder tweaking everything.

[Bjartr → ktizo]

I think you'd have to have some pretty cutting edge code generation genetic algorithms to have anything like this outperform a human, unless I am mistaken about the state of genetic code generation.

[astrodust → Bjartr]

Genetic algorithms excel at a particular set of problems. Those problems are pretty general in scope, and are often tricky to solve by humans that don't have the requisite intuition or time to explore the problem space more thoroughly.

You can't solve chess with a genetic algorithm, at least not to my knowledge, but you could sure as heck make a challenging checkers player with one.

[DavidSJ → astrodust]

Real world businesses require the integration of many knowledge domains in order to succeed. The specialized niches where genetic algorithms excel are at best a small subset.

[meric → Bjartr]

You might find this account of genetic algorithm designed circuits interesting. http://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/

And yes, the designs the algorithm come up with can in some ways be considered superior to what a human can come up with.