Breaking the Mould An Evolutionary Quest for Innovation Through Style Change.

An autonomous creative system able to learn, create and innovate is presented. Following previous work on the same topic, the approach explores the interplay between a classifier and an evolutionary system. The classifier is trained with famous paintings and images created by the system, learning to distinguish between these two categories. It is then used to assign fitness, leading to the discovery of imagery that deviates from that previously created by the system. Additionally, by taking phenotype similarity into account, we promote the discovery of diverse images during the course of the evolutionary runs. The images created throughout the evolutionary runs are added to the training set and the process is repeated. This iterative process, which includes retraining the classifier, sets the system into a permanent quest for novelty and innovation. The experimental results obtained across several iterations are presented and analysed, showing the ability of the system to consistently produce novel imagery and to identify atypical images.