I wonder how the world as we know it came a long way since the Cambrian explosion half a billion years ago.  Consider this: On an average, it takes about 20 years for a human being to impart a series of meaningful changes (a.k.a mutations) to the collective human gene pool (given people to start having kids after their teens!). No wonder it took so long time for us evolve (~100K years) from apes.

The more I think, the more it correlates to the digital revolutions we started since late 1900s, when we first started to create programs. The code we write (e.g., your Uber mobile app) is akin to the DNA except that this digital DNA is being mutated through controlled human supervision (your Uber app becomes smarter over time – not by itself but through the product team sitting at Uber!).

What if it is let run wild with no Adult Supervision??

Was curious and started thinking how is it even possible. I assume we change our DNAs through habits. The more we use our body for a specific purpose, the more it develops and customizes itself for that task (just like we lost tails or developed larger brains!)

Imagine if your app can understand its features, and look at the world and struggle for its survival (…read reinforced learning…). Now give it the ‘eyes’ and ‘senses’ to see the world and let it improve and change its ‘DNA’. See, what happens!

My hypothesis is the app can mutate and evolve by itself over time to suit its changing environment (obviously, we define the rules of the game on an ongoing basis – what it can develop and what it cannot develop). Only those features (mutations) survive that fit to the environment.

Now some fiction: I believe consciousness is the result of complexity. Any thing sufficiently complex can become self-aware over time. If our app is self-aware and constantly evolves for its survival, mutating itself probably once every day instead of taking 20 years, it takes about 13 years to reach a relative complexity of that of humans versus apes.

This gets me to a larger troubling question: Are we already some apps on a super beings’ smartphone? Are we living in an artificial creation or simulation?

Jokes apart…

Imagine your business service offering improving itself over time, with a little insight from your product innovation leads. Imaging your strategy reshaped constantly by arbitrating the supply against demand or fostering new demand.

Your app code is the DNA, Mobile and other digital devices are the organisms, we are the Nature (we, as consumers, collectively determine the feature’s survival chances) and your software becomes the intelligence that can meaningfully mutate.

How can we do it?

Let’s quickly look at how traditional application innovation is done. A close group of people possibly borrowing ideas from outside or on their own research, think about the improvement idea. It is followed by an experiment (like A/B testing), a proof of value and may be a pilot, followed by a full blown launch. Some of these phases may be switched or skipped, of course.

Now, think about this: How about throwing it to the users. Imagine you develop only the ‘seed’ app and open it up to people to install and use them. You help your ‘seed’ software mutate quite often to produce a new feature or alter an existing one. The more people use it and like it, the more prevalence that feature becomes in its feature pool thereby defining the stage of the application evolution.

Now how can we let our software randomly create sensible mutations. First and foremost teach your software to understand what sensible mutation means. AI needs to be embedded in your software such that it is aware of what a meaningful change is. For instance, if they use a particular feature often, make your app intelligent enough to readjust its UI to adjust for the user or fast track enhancements to these features if many are using it.

For doing this algorithms need to be able to recognize value adding features from various apps. For example, a training dataset can easily be built using various popular apps on the Apple and Android store, considering user reviews and the app feature  upgrade history. Depending on the category of app, features may differ, but the essence is in understand what do users feel valuable in an app.

A banking app may need to have features such as payment, transfers, profile update, check deposit etc. A possible step could be to abstract these to a generic lifestyle need, in this case, transactions and identity.

So Let your apps go wild and have fun!

I wish I could make this content self-aware and improve itself based on viewers’ feedback!

Cheers!

–Kumar Mankala