Book excerpt: This book explains how a computer, by replicating the processes of Darwinian evolution, taught itself to play checkers far better than its creators could have programmed it to play. Fogel (editor, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation) considers the implications for evolutionary computations and artificial intelligence. Diagrams illustrate the evolutionary and computational processes at work, and the course of various games of checkers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.