John R. Koza is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

and a former adjunct professor at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, most notable for his work in pioneering the use of

genetic programming In artificial intelligence, genetic programming (GP) is a technique of evolving programs, starting from a population of unfit (usually random) programs, fit for a particular task by applying operations analogous to natural genetic processes to t ...

for the optimization of complex problems. Koza co-founded

Scientific Games Corporation Light & Wonder, Inc., formerly Scientific Games Corporation (SG), is an American corporation that provides gambling products and services. The company is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. Light & Wonder's gaming division provides products such ...

, a company which builds computer systems to run state lotteries in the United States. John Koza is also credited with being the creator of the '

scratch card A scratchcard (also called a scratch off, scratch ticket, scratcher, scratchum, scratch-it, scratch game, scratch-and-win, instant game, instant lottery, scratchie, lot scrots, or scritchies) is a card designed for competitions, often made of ...

' with the help of retail promotions specialist Daniel Bower. Koza was born in 1944 and earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, being the second person to ever earn a bachelor's degree in computer science. He earned a doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Michigan in 1972. Koza was featured in

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

for his work on evolutionary programming that alters its own code to find far more complex solutions. The machine, which he calls the "invention machine", has created antennae, circuits, and lenses, and has received a patent from the

US Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

. In the political space, Koza advocates for a plan to revamp the way states choose their electors for the Electoral College in the United States, such that candidates who win the majority of the popular vote would then win a majority of the electors through an interstate compact. He established the organization

National Popular Vote Inc. National Popular Vote Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Los Altos, California, launched in 2006 by Barry Fadem and John Koza. Its purpose is "to study, analyze and educate the public regarding its proposed interstate compact providing for ...

to advocate for state adoption of the policy and the election of supportive candidates.

References

Works by Koza

* Koza, J.R. (1990)
''Genetic Programming: A Paradigm for Genetically Breeding Populations of Computer Programs to Solve Problems''
Stanford University Computer Science Department technical report STAN-CS-90-1314. A thorough report, possibly used as a draft to his 1992 book. * Koza, J.R. (1992). ''Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection'',

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

. * Koza, J.R. (1994). ''Genetic Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs'', MIT Press. * Koza, J.R.; Goldberg, David; Fogel, David; & Riolo, Rick, (Eds.) (1996). ''Genetic Programming 1996: Proceedings of the First Annual Conference (Complex Adaptive Systems)'', MIT Press. * Koza, J.R.; Deb, K.; Dorigo, M.; Fogel, D.; Garzon, M.; Iba, H.; & Riolo, R., (Eds.) (1997). ''Genetic Programming 1997: Proceedings of the Second Annual Conference'', Morgan Kaufmann. * Koza, J.R.; & Others (Eds.)(1998). ''Genetic Programming 1998'', Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. * Koza, J.R.; Bennett, F.H.; Andre, D.; & Keane, M.A. (1999). ''Genetic Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving'', Morgan Kaufmann. * Koza, J.R.; Keane, M.A.; Streeter, M.J.; Mydlowec, W.; Yu, J.; & Lanza, G. (2003). ''Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence'', Springer. *

External links

* *
Interview with John Koza about creating scratch cards
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koza, John Living people Theoretical computer scientists University of Michigan alumni Polish computer scientists Stanford University School of Engineering faculty American computer scientists American people of Polish descent 1944 births