Call For Entries
17th Annual (2020) "Humies" Awards
For Human-Competitive Results
Produced by Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
www.human-competitive.org
To be Held at:
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO)
July 8-12, 2020 (Wednesday - Sunday)
https://gecco-2020.sigevo.org
SPECIAL NOTICE: Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the GECCO
Conference will be held VIRTUALLY in 2020, rather than having
participants gather in Cancun, Mexico. As a result, significant
modifications are being made in the Humies Competition for 2020.
Entries are hereby solicited for awards totaling $10,000
for human-competitive results that have been produced by any form of
genetic and evolutionary computation (including, but not limited to
genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution strategies,
evolutionary programming, learning classifier systems, grammatical
evolution, gene expression programming, differential evolution, etc.)
and that have been published in the open literature between the deadline
for the previous competition and the deadline for the current competition.
The competition will be held as part of the Genetic and Evolutionary
Computation (GECCO) conference operated by the Association for
Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Genetic and
Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO). Each entry chosen to be a finalist
will be presented to the judges and eventually, to the public, in a
10-minute video submitted no later than Tuesday, June 30. The
finalists' videos will not be made available to the public before the
beginning of the virtual conference, but will be ultimately be made
available through the Human-Competitive.org website, the GECCO
website, and posted on YouTube. The winners of the awards will be
announced during the virtual conference.
This information is also available at the GECCO-2020 website, under
the "Calls" dropdown at top right of the main page, which takes you to
https://gecco-2020.sigevo.org/index.html/Humies.
Important Dates:
* Friday May 29, 2020 - Deadline for entries (consisting of one TEXT
file, PDF files for one or more papers, and possible "in press"
documentation (explained below). Please send entries to goodman at
msu dot edu
* Friday June 12, 2020 - Finalists will be notified by e-mail
* Friday June 26, 2020 - Finalists must submit their presentation
(e.g., PowerPoint, PDF) for posting on the competition's web site.
Send presentations to goodman at msu dot edu
* Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - Finalists must submit a 10-minute video
presentation (or the link and instructions for downloading the
presentation) to goodman at msu dot edu.
* July 8-12, 2020 (Wednesday - Sunday) - GECCO conference (the
schedule for the virtual version is not yet available)
* TENTATIVE: Sunday, July 12, 2020 - Announcement of awards at (virtual)
plenary session of the GECCO conference
Judging Committee:
* Erik Goodman
* Una-May O'Reilly
* Wolfgang Banzhaf
* Darrell Whitley
* Lee Spector
* PUBLICITY CHAIR: William Langdon
Call For Entries
Techniques of genetic and evolutionary computation are being
increasingly applied to difficult real-world problems - often yielding
results that are not merely academically interesting, but competitive
with the work done by creative and inventive humans. Starting at the
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) in 2004, cash
prizes have been awarded for human-competitive results that had been
produced by some form of genetic and evolutionary computation in the
previous year.
This prize competition is based on published results. The publication
may be a paper published anywhere in the open literature (e.g., the
GECCO conference, any another conference or workshop, journal,
technical report, thesis, book, chapter in edited book).
The competition is open to any paper
(1) published in the open literature between June 5, 2019 (the
deadline for the previous year's competition) and May 29, 2020 (the
deadline for this competition), or
(2) that is "in press" by the deadline for this competition.
"In Press" means the paper must have been unconditionally accepted
for publication and be identical to that which will be published
imminently without the possibility of any further changes or
revision by the authors or editors. For example, a paper accepted
for the current year's GECCO conference would not have been
published by the deadline for the competition. However, because the
paper has already been unconditionally accepted for publication
(and the final camera-ready version submitted to the conference
prior to the deadline for this competition), a GECCO paper is
"in press." If an entry is "in press," the entry must include a
copy of the documentation establishing that the paper meets this
requirement.
The paper must meet the usual standards of a scientific publication in
that it must clearly describe a problem, the methods used to address
the problem, the results obtained, and sufficient information about
how the work was done in order to enable the work to be independently
replicated.
An automatically created result is considered "human-competitive" if
it satisfies at least one of the eight criteria below.
(A) The result was patented as an invention in the past, is an
improvement over a patented invention, or would qualify today as a
patentable new invention.
(B) The result is equal to or better than a result that was accepted
as a new scientific result at the time when it was published in a
peer-reviewed scientific journal.
(C) The result is equal to or better than a result that was placed
into a database or archive of results maintained by an internationally
recognized panel of scientific experts.
(D) The result is publishable in its own right as a new scientific
result independent of the fact that the result was mechanically
created.
(E) The result is equal to or better than the most recent
human-created solution to a long-standing problem for which there has
been a succession of increasingly better human-created solutions.
(F) The result is equal to or better than a result that was considered
an achievement in its field at the time it was first discovered.
(G) The result solves a problem of indisputable difficulty in its
field.
(H) The result holds its own or wins a regulated competition involving
human contestants (in the form of either live human players or
human-written computer programs).
Contestants should note that a pervasive thread in most of the above
eight criteria is the notion that the result satisfy an "arms length"
standard - not a yardstick based on the opinion of the author, the
author's own institution (educational or corporate), or the author's
own close associates. "Arms length" may be established in numerous
ways. For example, if the result is a solution to "a long-standing
problem for which there has been a succession of increasingly better
human-created solutions," it is clear that the scientific community
(not the author, the author's own institution, or the author's close
associates) have vetted the significance of the problem. Similarly, a
problem's significance may be established if the result replicates or
improves upon a scientific result published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal, replicates or improves upon a previously patented
invention, constitutes a patentable new invention, or replicates or
improves a result that was considered an achievement in its field at
the time it was first discovered. Similarly, a problem's significance
may be established if the result holds its own or wins a regulated
competition involving live human players or human-written computer
programs. In each of the foregoing examples, the standard for
human-competitiveness is being established external to the author, the
author's own institution, or the author's close associates. It is also
conceivable to rely only on criterion G ("The result solves a problem
of indisputable difficulty in its field"); however, if only criterion
G is claimed, there must be a clear and convincing argument that the
problem's "difficulty" is indeed "indisputable."
The competition will be held as part of the annual Genetic and
Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference. Entries chosen to be
finalists will be presented to the judges and the public in a
10-minute video presentation submitted to goodman at msu dot edu no
later than Tuesday, June 30, 2020. These videos will be made available
soon thereafter to the judges, but not posted until the beginning of
the virtual conference. Submission of a video constitutes agreement to
posting of the video on websites of Human-Competitive.org, of GECCO,
and on YouTube. The organizers believe that making these videos
readily available will help to enhance the prestige of the field.
The awards and prizes will be announced at the (virtual) conference.
Cash prizes of $5,000 (gold), $3,000 (silver), and bronze (either one
prize of $2,000 or two prizes of $1,000) will be awarded for the best
entries that satisfy one or more of the criteria for
human-competitiveness. The awards will be divided equally among
co-authors unless the authors specify a different division at the time
of submission.
Prizes are paid by the ACM either by check in U.S. dollars or by bank
transfer, after the GECCO conference. The judges may, based on
submissions, reallocate the prize amounts and prize categories within
the total amount available for prizes.
DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENTERING THE "HUMIES"
If you plan to make an entry into this competition, please check the
web site for updated information and for possible last-minute changes
immediately prior to submitting your entry. Similarly, if you are
selected as a finalist, please re-check the web site frequently prior
to the conference for possible last-minute changes in instructions or
schedule.
All entries are to be sent electronically to goodman at msu dot
edu. All entries will be promptly acknowledged, so please make an
inquiry if you do not receive a reasonably prompt acknowledgment
shortly after your submission.
An entry must consist of one TEXT file and one or more PDF files. In
addition, if the paper is "in press" as of the deadline date for
submissions, an additional document must be submitted.
If authors are making multiple entries to the competition, they should
submit separate e-mails, each containing the required TEXT file and
PDF file(s) supporting the entry.
The TEXT file must contain the following 11 items. Please be very
careful to include ALL required information. Contestants are alerted
to the fact that items 6 and 9 are especially important and will be
the main basis by which entries will be judged. The papers and
presentations from earlier competitions (starting in 2004) are posted
at the competition web site at www.human-competitive.org. These
previous entries may be informative and helpful in crafting your
entry.
1. the complete title of one (or more) paper(s) published in the open
literature describing the work that the author claims describes a
human-competitive result;
2. the name, complete physical mailing address, e-mail address, and
phone number of EACH author of EACH paper(s);
3. the name of the corresponding author (i.e., the author to whom
notices will be sent concerning the competition);
4. the abstract of the paper(s);
5. a list containing one or more of the eight letters (A, B, C, D, E,
F, G, or H) that correspond to the criteria (see above) that the
author claims that the work satisfies;
6. a statement stating why the result satisfies the criteria that the
contestant claims (see examples of statements of human-competitiveness
as a guide to aid in constructing this part of the submission);
7. a full citation of the paper (that is, author names; publication
date; name of journal, conference, technical report, thesis, book, or
book chapter; name of editors, if applicable, of the journal or edited
book; publisher name; publisher city; page numbers, if applicable);
8. a statement either that "any prize money, if any, is to be divided
equally among the co-authors" OR a specific percentage breakdown as to
how the prize money, if any, is to be divided among the co-authors;
9. a statement stating why the authors expect that their entry would
be the "best," and
10. An indication of the general type of genetic or evolutionary
computation used, such as GA (genetic algorithms), GP (genetic
programming), ES (evolution strategies), EP (evolutionary
programming), LCS (learning classifier systems), GE (grammatical
evolution), GEP (gene expression programming), DE (differential
evolution), etc.
11. The date of publication of each paper. If the date of publication
is not on or before the deadline for submission, but instead, the paper
has been unconditionally accepted for publication and is "in press" by
the deadline for this competition, the entry must include a copy of the
documentation establishing that the paper meets the "in press" requirement.
The PDF file(s) are to contain the paper(s). The strongly preferred
method is that you send a separate PDF file for each of your paper(s)
relating to your entry. Both the text file and the PDF file(s) for
each entry will be permanently posted on a web page shortly after the
deadline date for entries (for use by the judges, conference
attendees, and anyone else who is interested) and will remain posted
on the web as a permanent record of the competition. If your paper is
only available on the publisher's web site and your publisher
specifically requires that your published paper may appear only on
your own personal page, the second choice is that you send link(s) to
a separate web page on your web site containing link(s) to the PDF
file(s) of the paper(s) that constitute your entry. This separate web
page is to contain nothing else, so the interested parties may quickly
locate your paper(s). If you use this second-choice option, you must
ALSO supply a link to a permanent web site maintained by your
publisher where your specific paper may be viewed or purchased (that
is, not a link merely to the publisher's general home page, but a link
to the specific web page containing your paper on the publisher's
site). Keep in mind that the objective is to guarantee a permanent
record of the entries and to make it easy for anyone to locate your
material.
Generally, only one paper should be submitted. More than one paper
should be submitted only if no single paper fully describes the
specific result or method. Note that this competition involves
specific results published in the past year, and it NOT an evaluation
of the author's entire body of work over period of years. Note that
this is a competition involving a result that satisfies the criteria
for being "human-competitive" as defined herein.
The judging committee will review all entries and identify a short
list of finalists who will be required to submit 10-minute video
presentations for the consideration of the judges and eventual posting
for the public. Finalists will be notified by an e-mail to the
corresponding author. Please acknowledge receipt of this message, so
the judges know that you received your notice. Finalists must then
make a 10-minute video for viewing by the judging committee and later,
by the public. The video or a link and instructions for downloading
the video must be sent to goodman at msu dot edu no later than
Tuesday, June 30, 2020. The winners will be announced at the
(virtualized) conference. Submission of a video constitutes
permission to post the video on the websites of Human-Competitive.org,
GECCO, and YouTube.
Finalists must submit their presentation (e.g., a PowerPoint, PDF) by
e-mail to goodman at msu dot edu. All submissions will be promptly
acknowledged, so please make an inquiry if you do not receive a
reasonably prompt acknowledgment. These presentations will be posted
on the web page for the competition. The 10-minute videos will be
viewed by the judging committee. The video presentations will be
opened to all conference attendees at a time to be announced when the
GECCO virtual schedule is established. The video presentation should
primarily focus on
1. why the result qualifies as being human-competitive and
2. why the judges should consider the entry as "best" in comparison to
other entries that may also be "human-competitive."
In this short oral presentation to the judges, a description of the
work itself is decidedly secondary. By the time of viewing your video,
the judges will be familiar with the papers. Thus, the focus of the
video is on reasons why the work being presented should win a prize,
not an explanation or presentation of the work itself.
After viewing the videos, the award committee will meet (virtually)
and consider the videos and the remainder of each finalist entry.
The presenting author for each entry must register for the GECCO conference.
A judge will recuse himself or herself if he or she is closely
associated with a finalist (e.g., a current academic advisor, current
collaborator, co-author with the finalist of related work).
Additional information is at www.human-competitive.org
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the GASCHEDULING list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=GASCHEDULING&A=1
|
