Digital Darwinism & Genetic Algorithms: (R)evolutionary Mathematics

In the previous part of this series, I began discussing the field of advanced evolutionary artificial intelligence. AI has seen some stunning advancements in recent times, but we are still quite a while away from achieving the holy grail - general artificial intelligence. That is, an AI so developed that it could perform any cognitive task that a human can. To achieve this, we must look further than applying neural networks to specific tasks, we must look for algorithms that evolve and mutate to adapt to situations. What we're talking about are genetic algorithms; effectively the mathematical counterpart to Darwinian evolution.