I think it would be some sort of teaching the system what good it. Let's say you are making his little robot. You want it to follow the light. So you pick a variable (light sensor reading) and optimize for a certain setting or direction (this reading as high as possible). The tool track that reading over the course of each try and picks the "best" one. This will have complexities of course. Do you want the highest single reading, or the highest mean or median over the course of the test? etc. But definitely solvable as he states. We managed to build 3d printers and space shuttles, we can build tools like this.
