The evolved circuit used fewer gates, but only worked on the device under test and when they removed gates that were apparently doing nothing, it failed to perform the task. ML cheating at its best!
"cheating" isn't, when it wasn't even taught what the rules were in the first place!
I wonder if there's a similar analogy with how a young kid or someone completely unfamiliar with something can come up with an amazing solution that more experienced people would never think of --- because the latter had "hardened" their thinking to accustomed patterns and didn't go beyond them.
The evolved circuit used fewer gates, but only worked on the device under test and when they removed gates that were apparently doing nothing, it failed to perform the task. ML cheating at its best!