The Effects of Population Size on the Performance of BEAGLE GPU-Based Genetic Programming Runs

Abstract

The Beagle framework, through GPU-based Genetic Programming, enables population dynamics previously unattainable (within practical time frames) by CPU-constrained Genetic Programming systems. This work explores how GPU-enabled population sizes impact the success of training for symbolic regression problems. Specifically, when using constant population sizes, we see benefits of using very narrow and deep searches (as narrow as 1000 individuals) for some problems, while other problems benefit from very broad and shallow searches (as broad as 10 million individuals). We also explore stepped population sizes that start with large populations and drop to small populations to balance the breadth and depth of search.