{"id":65567,"date":"2015-04-13T15:36:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T19:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=65567"},"modified":"2024-02-09T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T16:54:00","slug":"greatness-comes-intelligent-serendipitous-discovery-objectives-according-ucf-artificial-intelligence-researcher-kenneth-stanley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/greatness-comes-intelligent-serendipitous-discovery-objectives-according-ucf-artificial-intelligence-researcher-kenneth-stanley\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGreatness\u201d Comes from Intelligent Serendipitous Discovery, Not Objectives, According to UCF Computer Science Researcher Kenneth Stanley"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science <\/a>artificial intelligence researcher and associate professor Kenneth Stanley, Ph.D., provides a thought-provoking and contrarian perspective on how \u201cgreatness\u201d is achieved.\u00a0 In the soon-to-be-released book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, Stanley and co-author Joel Lehman, Ph.D., explore the provocative concept that setting specific goals and measurable objectives can have a detrimental impact on achieving a significant accomplishment. Rather, the authors argue, greatness occurs as the result of intelligent serendipitous discovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book explores the radical idea that our most notable successes and greatest achievements are not the result of having these specific achievements as the original objective,\u201d said<\/p>\n

Stanley. \u201cOn the contrary, society\u2019s greatest achievements evolve from ideas and activities that appear totally foreign and disconnected to the end result. It\u2019s what we refer to as the objective paradox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anticipated to be released in mid-May, the book is based on years of artificial intelligence research conducted by Stanley and Lehman, a UCF graduate and recent post-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. The authors explain that there is currently an over-emphasis on goal-setting and adhering to measurable objectives. Entire industries and institutions\u2014including education, science funding and medical research\u2014are heavily influenced by this philosophy. The problem, Stanley and Lehman explain, is that the scientific evidence and historical data suggest this doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an increased opportunity for greatness when there is no static objective but there is flexibility to discover and redirect,\u201d said Stanley.\u00a0 \u201cOftentimes, a great success is achieved through a serendipitous discovery. The interesting aspect, however, is that the discoverer is typically prepared and motivated to take advantage of the discovery and the new direction it provides. It\u2019s what we refer to as intelligent serendipitous discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanley points to rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, the computer, and microwave oven as examples of this intelligent kind of serendipitous discovery.\u00a0 \u201cElvis didn\u2019t start out with the goal of playing a key role in the creation of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.\u00a0 He was just following a path that felt natural and took advantage of the new direction it provided\u2014and the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for the book took root while Stanley was observing the interactions and results of his Picbreeder effort at UCF. Stanley\u2019s Evolutionary Complexity Research Group at UCF <\/a>created Picbreeder as an online platform that allows users to \u201cbreed\u201d pictures by selecting \u201cparents\u201d to produce evolving \u201coffspring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur observation of users engaged with Picbreeder actually inspired the main theme of the book, which is that sometimes achievement is more effective if you do not have an explicit objective,\u201d said Stanley. \u201cThe key observation was that the most impressive images the users bred on Picbreeder were almost always not their objective. This insight struck us as very deep. We realized the implication of allowing great achievements to happen serendipitously, rather than as a result of chasing objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, is available for pre-order immediately at Amazon and will soon be available for shipment. Visit amazon.com for more details.<\/p>\n

Stanley has more than 80 peer-reviewed published articles, 10 of which have won best paper awards. His research focuses on abstracting the essential properties of natural evolution that made it possible to discover astronomically complex structures such as the human brain and is, in part, an approach to artificial intelligence. He is regularly invited to speak at venues across the world.\u00a0 Lehman, who will begin as an assistant professor at the IT University of Copenhagen later this year, also has numerous published articles and is a frequent presenter. His research with Stanley led to a new artificial intelligence algorithm called “novelty search,” which is included in the book. This algorithm searches only for new behaviors such as robot behaviors, but with no other objective, and often finds useful or interesting behaviors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scheduled for publication in May, \u201cWhy Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective\u201d explains the provocative \u201cobjective paradox\u201d principle and its impact on society <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":65568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[4,23,24],"tags":[973,9893],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-65567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-research","category-science-technology","tag-college-of-engineering-and-computer-science","tag-kenneth-stanley"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cGreatness\u201d Comes from Intelligent Serendipitous Discovery, Not Objectives, According to UCF Computer Science Researcher Kenneth Stanley | University of Central Florida News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"University of Central Florida College of Engineering and Computer Science artificial intelligence researcher and associate professor Kenneth Stanley, Ph.D., provides a thought-provoking and contrarian perspective on how \u201cgreatness\u201d is achieved. 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