Genetic Conway Automata

• Take 4 sets of patterns each in a 50x50 space on the board
• Run them for 5000 cycles and rank them by how many spaces they occupy
• Carry over the first and second most successful patterns
• Take the most successful pattern and introduce 5 random mutations (Turn off a cell that's on, or vice versa) to create a new pattern
• Take half of the most successful with half the second most successful to create a new pattern
• Repeat with these four patterns

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Source Code

Conclusion

It reaches a good solution quickly, and then doesn't get much better after about half an hour of running it. They develop interesting, psuedo-intelligent, patterns such as 'shooting' multiple gliders and forming large clouds of activity that are very resilient to another color being introduced.