We are organising the 4th edition of our special session on CA, distributed dynamical systems, and their applications to intelligence. Submit your works and join us at ALIFE 2026 in Waterloo (Canada).
bingdev.binghamton.edu/sayama/SS-di...
The report also outlines several directions for future exploration—both conceptually and through new computational substrates. 🚀
Barricelli’s early experiments remind us that artificial life is not only about simulating biology; it may also help us understand how intelligence itself can emerge, scale, and organize collectively.
Because the idea that complex intelligence emerges from symbiotic interactions among simpler entities resonates strongly with today’s AI landscape—whether we look at multi-agent systems, neural cellular automata, or evolving neural networks. 🤖
🔹 Discussion of symbiogenesis as a mechanism for the origins of life, open-ended evolution, and collective intelligence 🧠
🔹 Replication of Barricelli’s original 1D experiments with digital organisms
🔹 Extension to 2D “symbioorganisms”, enabling richer spatial interactions 🌐
🔹 Preliminary experiments with DNA-norms, exploring new evolutionary constraints 🧬
Barricelli’s question was profound:
Can complex forms of life emerge from simple computational substrates through cooperation and symbiosis?
In our report we explore this question again, combining historical replication with new directions:
At the ALICE 2026 workshop in Copenhagen, our group SymBa revisited the pioneering work of Nils Barricelli, who in 1953 explored the symbiogenesis of numerical organisms using one-1D cellular automata— one of the earliest experiments in artificial life & evolutionary computation.
What can a 70-year-old idea about digital organisms teach us about the future of AI and artificial life? 🧬💡
📄 Read our report: arxiv.org/abs/2603.08463
#ArtificialLife #ComplexSystems #OpenEndedEvolution #ArtificialIntelligence #ALife
Submissions for #ALife2026 workshop, tutorial, and spec.session proposals are now closed. Thanks for the great response! Decision letters will be sent soon, and accepted sessions will appear on the website.
👉 2026.alife.org
Reminder: the deadline for full papers and extended summaries is March 30.
Do you know a student who has published an amazing paper? A veteran professor you admire? Nominate them to win an #ISAL 2026 Award! 🏆
Winners will be announced at @alifeconf.bsky.social ! Want to know more? Check out the form and submit it by March 8 AoE!
#ALIFE2026
forms.gle/bkd4ireJSSUc...
Co-authors from University of Cambridge (UK), Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway), Technical University of Berlin (Germany), University of Bristol (UK), Østfold University College(Norway)
Kristine's paper "Information theoretic measures of neural and behavioural coupling predict representational drift" is now available on PLOS Comp. Biology.
Link: doi.org/10.1371/jour...
This work was led by Kristine (former PhD student) while visiting University of Cambridge during her PhD.
📢 Call for Papers: #ALIFE2026
Waterloo 🇨🇦 & online | 17–21 Aug 2026
📝 Full Papers & Summaries: 30 March 2026
📌 Special Sessions, Workshops & Tutorials proposals: 20 Feb 2026
Theme: Living and Lifelike Complex Adaptive Systems
2026.alife.org
What a week—projects, tutorials, discussion groups, art demo & even a complexity-alife quiz! Thank you to all the attendees who brought a fantastic energy to this year's ALICE workshop.
We can't wait to see you again next year, this time in Norway 🇳🇴
Thank you to @aicentre.dk and @itu.dk !
The first month of 2026 has flown by and today we bring you the new monthly #complexitycat thread, where you'll find opportunities that you will fall in love with. 🧵😻
(Keep an eye next week, we'll bring you more.😉)
OT: here's our new baby, basically a third child. His name is Happy, 9 weeks old ❤️
What a great week at the @aliceworkshop.org (Artificial Life, Intelligence, Complexity & Evolution) in Copenhagen.
Our multidisciplinary group worked intensely for the whole week and we got the 2nd prize!!
Thanks to the amazing organizers from the REAL lab and the jury.
Thanks for the great tips! 👍
Projects time 👨💻👩💻🧑💻
The panel discussion with all the guests speakers and moderated by Milton Montero & @elisecutts.bsky.social
Day two: tutorials, more discussion groups with @angelgm.bsky.social, @kyrre2000.bsky.social and Alexander Mordvintsev
Discussion groups with @stenichele.bsky.social, @alyssa-m-adams.bsky.social, Susan Stepney & @ericmedvetts.bsky.social
Project pitch time 💡
Great project ideas by attendees and guest speakers @alyssa-m-adams.bsky.social, @angelgm.bsky.social, @stenichele.bsky.social, @kyrre2000.bsky.social, @ericmedvetts.bsky.social, Susan Stepney & Alexander Mordvintsev
#ALICEinCopenhagen #ALICE26
Less than a week for ALICE—we are looking forward welcome you all in Copenhagen! ⛄
You can find the updated program here: aliceworkshop.org/program/
Save the date!
The annual #Conference on #ArtificialLife - #ALIFE2026 will take place in Waterloo (Ontario, Canada), 17-21 August 2026. More details coming soon!
Check out our new preprint (work led by Andreas Massey) on "Sleep-Based Homeostatic Regularization for Stabilizing Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity in Recurrent Spiking Neural Networks".
arxiv.org/abs/2601.08447
Congrats Dr. Tom Glover for a successful PhD defence at OsloMet
As a supervisor, it has been a pleasure working with you and learning from you.
Thanks to the evaluation committee Kamalika Bhattacharjee, Michele Braccini, and Kazi Shah Nawaz Ripon
Our paper "ARC-NCA: Towards Developmental Solutions to the Abstraction & Reasoning Corpus" has been awarded a Runner-Up #ARCprize
Congrats team: E. Guichard, F. Reimers, M. Kvalsund, M. Lepperød, & me
Thanks F. Chollet, G. Kamradt, M. Knoop!
Paper: etimush.github.io/ARC_NCA/
Proud supervisor announcement:
Tom will be defending his PhD on December 17th.
Title: “Harvesting the computation of Elementary Cellular Automata with Reservoir Computing”
www.oslomet.no/en/about/eve...
