Imagine a gene sequence as a number in binary format, each
digit is a gene whose value is 0 or 1.
In nature, we expect each gene sequence to have a
particular fitness. More specifically, we can imagine
that the fitness of a sequence depends on the values of the
individual genes.
At its simplest, the fitness of a gene could depend solely
on its own state. At its most complex, the fitness of a gene
could depend on the state of all others.
There are N genes. Each gene's fitness depends of the
state of K others.
An NK landscape is generated by assigning these values
randomly.