Software today is an evolving adaptive system. Although we think of computer programs as the products of intelligent design, they also evolve inadvertently through the actions of many individual programmers, often leading to unanticipated consequences. Similarly, economic and political incentives produce arms races between competitors and adversaries, which in turn have shaped the cyber landscape. Because software is subject to constraints similar to those faced by evolving biological systems, we have much to gain by viewing computing through the lens of biology. The talk will highlight research applying the mechanisms of evolution quite directly to software, including repairing bugs, closing vulnerabilities, and optimizing GPU codes. The results have implications for how we think more generally about engineering complex systems that are subject to evolutionary pressures and engineering constraints.
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