I wouldn't worry about it too much, for a couple of reasons.
First, the evolution of the computational model is simply faster than biological evolution. The computation model is going to be inside biological evolution's (metaphorical) OODA loop. Humans are going to be helping, too, it's not like it's just going to be up to the deep learning algorithms on their own.
Second, for most weed plants, they aren't just a couple of genes away from mimicking corn... they're probably dozens or hundreds of genes away from mimicking corn. Evolution is OK at adapting current things to new uses, or doing a massively-parallel search on what you can do with just a tweak to a gene, but if the task can't be done with one of those things, it just loses and the organism dies. Or, to put it another way, it's good at climbing slopes one step at a time, but if you present it with a cliff it just fails.
It's essentially the same reason why nothing has evolved a resistance to a human gardener yanking them physically out of the ground and leaving them to die on the concrete... it's not just a matter of tweaking a couple of genes for that. This robot presents an exceedingly harsh selection landscape for a weed.
> Evolution is OK at adapting current things to new uses, or doing a massively-parallel search on what you can do with just a tweak to a gene, but if the task can't be done with one of those things, it just loses and the organism dies. Or, to put it another way, it's good at climbing slopes one step at a time, but if you present it with a cliff it just fails.
As long as a mutation isn't drastically harmful, it may persist in the population to be built upon later.
> It's essentially the same reason why nothing has evolved a resistance to a human gardener yanking them physically out of the ground and leaving them to die on the concrete...
They have evolved quite a few of these. Try and clear a lawn of dandelions and you'll discover they regenerate from their taproot if you leave any of it in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry indicates another, where false flax has evolved based on a human invention, winnowing machines, to evade them.
Rye grain evolved so effectively based on human activity that it went from weed to useful crop, even.
> Evolution is OK at adapting current things to new uses, or doing a massively parallel search on what you can do with just a tweak to a gene
I think evolution over longer timespans is the algorithm that keeps giving. In a single run it created all life and current technology. Evolution is radically open-ended, and that's how it gets around deceptive search spaces.
First, the evolution of the computational model is simply faster than biological evolution. The computation model is going to be inside biological evolution's (metaphorical) OODA loop. Humans are going to be helping, too, it's not like it's just going to be up to the deep learning algorithms on their own.
Second, for most weed plants, they aren't just a couple of genes away from mimicking corn... they're probably dozens or hundreds of genes away from mimicking corn. Evolution is OK at adapting current things to new uses, or doing a massively-parallel search on what you can do with just a tweak to a gene, but if the task can't be done with one of those things, it just loses and the organism dies. Or, to put it another way, it's good at climbing slopes one step at a time, but if you present it with a cliff it just fails.
It's essentially the same reason why nothing has evolved a resistance to a human gardener yanking them physically out of the ground and leaving them to die on the concrete... it's not just a matter of tweaking a couple of genes for that. This robot presents an exceedingly harsh selection landscape for a weed.