Petri Dish Neural Cellular Automata

Sakana AI introduces Petri Dish Neural Cellular Automata (PD-NCA), a new ALife substrate where multiple neural cellular automata learn to self-replicate and grow via ongoing gradient descent, leading to complex emergent behaviors like cyclic dynamics, territorial defense, and spontaneous cooperation. The work was presented at ALIFE2025.

From the source
Our Petri Dish Neural Cellular Automata (PD-NCA) is a new ALife substrate that consists of a differentiable world where multiple NCA learn to self-replicate and grow via ongoing gradient descent. Every individual is constantly trying to grow, all the while learning to adapt and out-compete its neighbors.
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Announced: 04 Nov 2025 15:00 UTC
Detected: 28 Aug 2026 21:48 UTC (+297d after)

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