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A comment on Can we do better than our C compiler?. Parent comment

Re:Can we do better than our C compiler? by joshvm on Thursday August 13, 2020 @09:50AM (#24143294)
I think this is the story, it's good fun: https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/

The evolved circuit used fewer gates, but only worked on the device under test and when they removed gates that were apparently doing nothing, it failed to perform the task. ML cheating at its best!

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Re:Can we do better than our C compiler? by userbinator on Thursday August 13, 2020 @03:42PM (#24147589)
"cheating" isn't, when it wasn't even taught what the rules were in the first place!

I wonder if there's a similar analogy with how a young kid or someone completely unfamiliar with something can come up with an amazing solution that more experienced people would never think of --- because the latter had "hardened" their thinking to accustomed patterns and didn't go beyond them.

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