Call For Entries
23nd Annual (2026) "Humies" Awards
For Human-Competitive Results Produced by Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
To be held as part of:
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO)
July 13-17, 2026 (Monday - Friday)
San Jose, Costa Rica (Hybrid)
Entries are solicited for awards totaling $10,000 for
human-competitive results that have been produced by any form of
genetic and evolutionary computation (including, but not limited to
genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution strategies,
evolutionary programming, learning classifier systems, grammatical
evolution, gene expression programming, differential evolution,
genetic improvement, etc.) and that have been published in the open,
reviewed literature between the deadline for the previous competition
and the deadline for the current competition.
The competition will be held as part of the Genetic and
Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference operated by the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group
on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO). GECCO will
be held in a hybrid manner, so either in-person or virtual
participation will be possible. Watch the GECCO website
(https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org) for details.
Humies entrants selected as finalists may present either in person,
or virtually by submission of a 10-minute video presentation.
Video entries and, if possible, recordings of in-person presentations,
will subsequently be made available to the public on the
Human-Competitive.org website, the GECCO website, and posting on YouTube.
The winners of the awards will be announced during the GECCO conference.
At least one author of the submission must be registered for GECCO,
although there is no requirement to present a paper there;
only the in-person or video presentation of the Humies entry is required.
Important Dates:
* Friday May 29, 2026
Deadline for entries (consisting of one TEXT file, PDF files for
one or more papers, and possible "in press" documentation. Please
send entries to goodman at msu dot edu
* Friday June 12, 2026
Finalists will be notified by e-mail
* Friday, June 26, 2026
Finalists who will not be in San Jose to present in person must
submit a 10-minute video presentation to goodman at msu dot edu.
Finalists who will present in person must submit a copy of their
slides, for the advance use of the judges,to goodman at msu dot edu
* July 13-17, 2026 (Monday - Friday)
GECCO conference
(the schedule for the Humies session is not yet final,
so please check the GECCO program as it is updated for the time
of the Humies session)
* Check GECCO schedule for posting
Presentation session, where either a live presentation will be
given or the 10-minute videos will be shown.
* Friday, July 17, 2026
Announcement of awards at the plenary session of the
GECCO conference
Judging Committee:
Anne Auger
Wolfgang Banzhaf
Stephanie Forrest
Emma Hart
Lee Spector
Darrell Whitley
Call For Entries
Techniques of genetic and evolutionary computation are being
increasingly applied to difficult real-world problems, often yielding
results that are not merely academically interesting, but competitive
with the work done by creative and inventive humans. Starting at the
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) in 2004,
cash prizes have been awarded for human-competitive results that
had been produced by some form of genetic and evolutionary
computation in the previous year.
This prize competition is based on published results. The publication
must be a refereed publication in the open literature (e.g., the GECCO
conference, any another reviewed conference or workshop, journal, or
chapter in edited book). Submission of more than one entry by a
single person or team is allowed.
The competition is open to any paper
(1) published in the open literature between May 30, 2025
(the deadline for the previous year's competition) and May 29, 2026
(the deadline for this competition), (explicitly including GECCO-2025
and GECCO-2026) or
(2) that is "in press" by the deadline for this competition.
"In Press" means the paper must have been unconditionally accepted
for publication and be identical to that which will be published
imminently without the possibility of any further changes or revision
by the authors or editors. For example, a paper accepted for the
current year's GECCO conference would not have been published by
the deadline for the competition. However, because the paper has
already been unconditionally accepted for publication (and the
final camera-ready version submitted to the conference prior to
the deadline for this competition), a GECCO paper is "in press."
If an entry is "in press," the entry must include a copy of the
documentation establishing that the paper meets this requirement.
The paper must meet the usual standards of a scientific publication in
that it must clearly describe a problem, the methods used to address
the problem, the results obtained, and sufficient information about
how the work was done in order to enable the work to be
independently replicated.
Cash prizes totalling US$10,000, usually $5,000 (gold),
$3,000 (silver), and bronze (either one prize of $2,000
or two prizes of $1,000) will be awarded for the
best entries that satisfy one or more of the criteria
for human-competitiveness. The judges may, based on submissions,
reallocate the prize amounts and prize categories within
the total amount available for prizes.
The awards will be divided equally among co-authors unless
the authors specify a different division at the time of submission.
Prizes are paid by the ACM by bank transfer, after the GECCO conference.
DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENTERING THE "HUMIES"
If you plan to make an entry into this competition, please check the
web site for updated information and for possible last-minute changes
immediately prior to submitting your entry. Similarly, if you are
selected as a finalist, please re-check the web site frequently prior
to the conference for possible last-minute changes in instructions or
schedule.
All entries are to be sent electronically to goodman at msu dot edu.
All entries will be promptly acknowledged, so please make an
inquiry if you do not receive a reasonably prompt acknowledgment
within a few days after your submission.
The judging committee will review all entries and identify a short
list of finalists. Each finalist entry must either be presented in
person at GECCO in a 10-minute presentation, or if not to be
presented in person, be presented in a 10-minute video submitted
in advance for consideration of the judges and eventual posting
for the public. Finalists will be notified by an e-mail to the
corresponding author. Please acknowledge receipt of that message,
so the judges know that you received your notice.
Judges will recuse themselves if they are closely associated with a
finalist (e.g., a current academic advisor, current collaborator,
co-author with the finalist of related work).
Bill
Prof. W. B. Langdon
Department of Computer Science
University College London
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/W.Langdon/
GI@ICSE 2026 https://geneticimprovementofsoftware.com/events/icse2026
GP EM https://www.springer.com/10710
A Field Guide to Genetic Programming
http://www.gp-field-guide.org.uk/
GP Bibliography https://gpbib.cs.ucl.ac.uk/