Evolutionary Computing

A pretty broad question.  We solved specific, narrow problems using this, essentially genetic methods.   But if the solution has to be a body of derived code, the problem is much harder.

Evolutionary computation has been promising self-programming machines for 60 years – so where are they?   By Graham Kendall in TheConversation

Professor of Computer Science and Provost/CEO/PVC, University of Nottingham

What if computers could program themselves? Instead of the laborious job of working out how a computer could solve a problem and then writing precise coded instructions, all you would have to do is tell it what you want and the computer would generate an algorithm that solves your problem.

Enter evolutionary computation, which can be seen as a type of artificial intelligence and a branch of machine learning. First suggested in the 1950s, evolutionary computation is the idea that a computer can evolve its own solutions to problems, rather than humans having to go through a series of possibly complex steps to write the computer program ourselves. In theory, this would mean computer programs that might take weeks to program manually could be ready in a matter of minutes. ... "