Eurisko, The Computer With A Mind Of Its Own
http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF0704/Johnson/Johnson.html

In 1981, Eurisko, a computer program that arguably displays the rudiments of such skills, easily won the Traveller tournament, becoming the top-ranked player in the United States and an honorary Admiral in the Traveller navy. Eurisko had designed its fleet according to principles it discovered itself–with some help from its inventor, Douglas B. Lenat, an assistant professor in Stanford University’s artificial-intelligence program.

popular overview

Trillion Credit Squadron playing 'bot in 1984. Cool.

"During one run, Lenat noticed that the number in the Worth slot of one newly discovered heuristic kept rising, indicating that Eurisko had made a particularly valuable find. As it turned out the heuristic performed no useful function. It simply examined the pool of new concepts, located those with the highest Worth values, and inserted its name in their My Creator slots. It was a heuristic that, in effect, had learned how to cheat." :via the new yorker, 2009.05.11 :via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurisko#cite_note-newyorker-2

"In 1981, Eurisko, a computer program that arguably displays the rudiments of such skills, easily won the Traveller tournament, becoming the top-ranked player in the United States and an honorary Admiral in the Traveller navy. Eurisko had designed its fleet according to principles it discovered itself–with some help from its inventor, Douglas B. Lenat, an assistant professor in Stanford University’s artificial-intelligence program."