Via the PHOSITA® intellectual property blog, a story about a machine that invents machines. Well, sorta.

In the same vein as my previous post about the singularity summit at Stanford, we hear the story of John Koza:

Now 62 and an adjunct professor at Stanford University, Koza is the inventor of genetic programming, a revolutionary approach to artificial intelligence (AI) capable of solving complex engineering problems with virtually no human guidance. Koza’s 1,000 networked computers don’t just follow a preordained routine. They create, growing new and unexpected designs out of the most basic code. They are computers that innovate, that find solutions not only equal to but better than the best work of expert humans. His “invention machine,” as he likes to call it, has even earned a U.S. patent for developing a system to make factories more efficient, one of the first intellectual-property protections ever granted to a nonhuman designer.

I hadn't heard of this guy before, but apparently he's fairly famous in certain circles. Not only did he help pioneer the use of genetic programming, he also co-invented the scratch-off lottery ticket. Naturally.

Read more: John Koza has built an invention machine.