Question

Difference of intemsification and diversification strategy

Answer 1

1) exploitation consists of probing a limited (but promising) region of the search space with the hope of improving a promising solution S that we already have at hand. This operation amounts then to intensifying (refining) the search in the vicinity of S. By doing so, we would be doing, de facto, a local search.

2) exploration, on the other hand, consists of probing a much larger portion of the search space with the hope of finding other promising solutions that are yet to be refined. This operation amounts then to diversifying the search in order to avoid getting trapped in a local optimum. By doing so, we would be doing, de facto, a global search.