"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
WOPR evolved and learned while playing against himself. Nifty! As WOPR drew additional power, assumedly, WOPR was able to evolve due to extrinsic / intrinsic features. Extrinsic evolution uses software simulation of the hardware to evaluate the effectiveness of each new model. This is great where the threat may not be too specific or rather abstract. It is best to apply this to the underlying hardware due to the fact abstraction from the underlying hardware will lead to a less optimal model. Intrinsic evolution is implemented in the hardware. Each model is evaluated and implemented based upon the threat, vulnerability, and other quantitative data. This is extremely useful for deducing the risk’s properties which can not be known by traditional risk methodologies. Imagine this as if each variant in the model is downloaded to the chip as a data design configuration. Where the fitness is evaluated by applying test vectors and calculating the fitness value from its’ response.
Assuming threat characteristics, for evolvable modelling design issues, an evolutionary algorithm determines some of the structure or parameters of a reconfigurable item. This item may exist in software, although it could be a simulation of the hardware of a final implementation. The reconfigurable item might alternatively be physically changeable hardware. Typically, the item is embedded in some sort of environment, where it responds, influences, and behaves. The evolutionary model creator devises a fitness evaluation procedure that monitors and possibly manipulates the environment and items, returning objective function metrics. An algorithm generates structural / parametric variations of the risk, by applying variation operators (mutate, cross over, etc..) to some representation of the object’s configuration. All the system gets back are the measured objective values. Another way of thinking about the evaluation / environment / object process as a black-box system. Where WOPR played each scenario and came to the same conclusion for all "The only winning move is not to play."