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References: Breeding Better Unicorns with AI

  1. Generative artificial intelligence - Wikipedia - Overview of AI systems that create new content including images, text, and designs, the technology this chapter imagines applied to mythical creature engineering.

  2. Selective breeding - Wikipedia - History and methods of artificial selection in agriculture and animal husbandry, the real-world practice this chapter satirically extends to unicorn optimization.

  3. Generative design - Wikipedia - AI-driven design methodologies that explore vast solution spaces, the legitimate engineering technique behind the chapter's absurd unicorn feature generator.

  4. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence - Max Tegmark - Knopf - MIT physicist's exploration of AI's transformative potential and existential risks, the "what could go wrong" perspective the chapter applies to unicorn breeding.

  5. The Master Algorithm - Pedro Domingos - Basic Books - Survey of machine learning approaches and the quest for a universal learning algorithm, providing the technical context for the chapter's AI-enhanced creature design.

  6. DALL-E and AI Image Generation - OpenAI - The generative image model that makes AI-designed unicorns technically possible, demonstrating that the chapter's premise is less fictional than it appears.

  7. Genetic Algorithm Explained - GeeksforGeeks - Tutorial on evolutionary computation methods, the optimization approach the chapter's AI unicorn breeder employs to maximize horn aerodynamics.

  8. Speculative Design - Speculative Edu - Introduction to design methodologies that imagine possible futures, the intellectual tradition this chapter's unicorn feature generator belongs to.

  9. AI-Generated Art and Copyright - U.S. Copyright Office - Official guidance on intellectual property issues in AI-generated content, raising the question of who owns an AI-designed unicorn.

  10. Procedural Generation in Games - Game Developer - Overview of algorithmic content creation in video games, the closest real application to the chapter's configurable mythical creature simulator.