We are a group of ISAL (@alifeofficial) researchers, students, and postdocs aimed at building community and supporting the advancement of Artificial Life! 🪲🌍

Joined August 2017
1/📢 Announcing our next ERA Journal Club session 📍Oct 24, 17:00 BST on Discord: discord.gg/m3qvuXgkZ7 Can you build a computer out of a duck? 🦆💻 James Stovold joins us to discuss growing Echo State Networks via Developmental Graph CAs in unconventional computing!
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2/Rather than constraining physical substrates, modern unconventional computing exploits natural dynamics via reservoir computing. By using Developmental Graph Cellular Automata (DGCA) to grow Echo State Networks, grown models beat standard ESNs on benchmark tasks! 🧬⚙️
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3/Points to discuss at the JC: - How do we choose the right physical substrate for computing? - How does stochastic sensing enhance Developmental Graph CAs? - Do grown networks challenge existing views on reservoir computing?🔍 Bring a friend, bring a question. See you there! 🌱
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Field Life is a continuous, grid-based #ALife simulation that operates on scalar fields rather than discrete particles. It runs entirely on the GPU, simulating complex emergent behaviors! Intrigued? Join our next Professional Town Hall to learn more! 🌱 izhv.eu/field-life/
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ERA - Emerging Researchers in ALife retweeted
1/📢 Announcing our next ERA Journal Club session 📍Sept 26, 17:00 BST on Discord: discord.gg/m3qvuXgkZ7 What happens when you replace Langton's rule with a neural net? 🐜🧠 NAnts explores self-healing spatial patterns through collective behavior! 🔗 izhv.eu/nants/
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1/📢 Announcing our next ERA Journal Club session 📍Sept 26, 17:00 BST on Discord: discord.gg/m3qvuXgkZ7 What happens when you replace Langton's rule with a neural net? 🐜🧠 NAnts explores self-healing spatial patterns through collective behavior! 🔗 izhv.eu/nants/
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2/By training ants with local vision and path context via #backpropagation and #REINFORCE, NAnts can collaboratively paint complex shapes like geckos, butterflies, and snails. Even if partially erased or started anywhere on the grid, they dynamically repair the image! 🦎✨
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3/Points to discuss: - How does combining backprop and REINFORCE enable emergent coordination? - Can neural cellular automata redefine resilient self-healing structures? - What are the limits of multi-agent neural dynamics? 🔍 Bring a friend, bring a question. See you there! 🌱
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ERA - Emerging Researchers in ALife retweeted
Open-endedness has been proposed and studied within the field of Artificial Life for many years. Now it becomes the goal for ARC-AGI. Question: how does the @arcprize internd to benchmark a property aiming at continuous novelty and never-ending innovation?
ARC-AGI-4 will be a benchmark for autonomous open-ended innovation. It will continue our commitment to open-source, giving the research community a shared target for progress that benefits all of humanity. Despite rapid model progress, humans still significantly outperform AI at open-ended invention. This is the meta-skill that unlocks progress across every field of technology. Advanced AI capable of scientific innovation will lead to tremendous new technology, knowledge, and understanding. This is a positive-sum future. We are deeply committed to advancing it. Open source is the foundation for that progress. The knowledge behind frontier AI, not just the technology itself, should be broadly distributed among researchers, academics, and organizations. Any coordinated effort by the AI industry to reduce openness or concentrate access to frontier AI would undermine that positive-sum future. We are committed to advancing a future where everyone can contribute to and benefit from AI progress.
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Curious about optimizing complex systems? ⚙️ Join our next Professional Town Hall, where Craig Reynolds will discuss "Evolving Parameter Sets for Complex Models." 🧬 Intrigued? Join us on Discord to learn more! 🗓️ September 10th, 1:00 PM UTC 🔗 discord.com/invite/m3qvuXgkZ…
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ERA - Emerging Researchers in ALife retweeted
#ALIFE2026 conference banquet -- join the ISAL activities!! @alifeofficial @ISALstudents
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Are you attending @ALifeConf? Stop by our #ERAWorkshop! Throughout the day, we'll be hosting engaging talks by emerging researchers in #ALife and beyond, covering any topic that interests you! Interested? Check out our program below and we'll see you at #ALIFE2026!
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ERA - Emerging Researchers in ALife retweeted
🥨 Pack your favorite treats from home & join the ERA MiniCon International Snack Exchange! Whether sweet, salty, or savory—come taste, swap, & share delicious snacks with researchers from around the globe. What will you bring? 🌍🍫 📅 Aug 16, 2026 | 📍 Waterloo #ALIFE2026
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ERA - Emerging Researchers in ALife retweeted
🍁 Kicking off right before #ALIFE2026! Join us for the ERA MiniCon, a full day built by & for early-career researchers in artificial life. 📍 In-person in Waterloo OR live on Discord 📅 Sunday, Aug 16, 2026 🎟️ 100% Free, no registration needed! Meet our speaker lineup 🧵👇
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ERA - Emerging Researchers in ALife retweeted
Want to introduce #ALife to a general audience? 🌍 Explore a digital "museum exhibit" guiding curious minds through key ideas, discovering the design behind the platform and how you can shape its future! 🏛️🔮 Intrigued? Join our next Professional Town Hall to learn more! 🌱
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