Tuesday, 21 July 2026 Sign in

Automating the Search for Artificial Life with Foundation Models

Sakana AI

Researchers at Sakana AI, MIT, and OpenAI developed ASAL, an algorithm that uses vision-language foundation models to automatically discover artificial lifeforms across simulations like Conway's Game of Life and Boids. ASAL searches for simulations matching three criteria: producing specified target behaviors, generating persistent novelty, and illuminating diverse possible worlds. The work enables automated exploration of artificial life beyond manual design constraints, potentially accelerating ALife research and revealing principles underlying complex systems and emergence.

Read the full story at Sakana AI

Sakana AI Foundation Models

Every AI story that matters,
in your inbox by 8am.

TLDRocket reads 60+ sources, removes duplicate coverage, and summarises the day in two minutes. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.

TLDRocket 21 July 2026

The open-weight model wars just got hotter and more complicated. Alibaba's decision to open-source Qwen 3.8 Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter model, arrives as Kimi K3—Zhipu's 2.8T parameter system—has already claimed the top spot on Frontend Web App Arena with a 1326 Elo rating, outpacing even frontier models on certain benchmarks. Both moves signal that the frontier of capable AI is no longer exclusively held by closed API providers, a shift that's forcing the U.S. administration to consider layered policy restrictions on Chinese open models. Yet technical voices inside and outside government are pushing back, arguing that constraining open-weight systems paradoxically weakens security and competition rather than strengthening either. Meanwhile, the infrastructure problems keeping teams awake have matured: model routing, world modeling for agents, and long-horizon reliability are now first-class concerns, not afterthoughts. Frontier models have even begun solving mathematical problems at superhuman levels—like finding counterexamples to the 3D Jacobian conjecture—suggesting the bottleneck has shifted from raw capability to engineering deployment.

Read the full briefing →

Automating the Search for Artificial Life with Foundation Models

Related stories

Every AI story that matters, in your inbox by 8am.

Every AI story that matters,
in your inbox by 8am.