A Broader Audience for Cellular Automata

[otismo]

HYPE

Hype is the surefire way To Expand A Broader Audience for Cellular Automata.

All the necessary elements are now in place so you should indulge my harebrained hypester idea

[you can then give me feedback - tell me what you think].

These Forums have about 2,000 members; the total Global Community numbers about 20,000;

Total Global CA Interest roughly 200,000 [arbitrary numbers - the forum membership is accurate].

( The monthly Golly download rate hints at the size of the fan club - or the Total Global CA Interest. )

People are interested in CA for their own personal reasons

[and may or may not wish to engage an academic community].

I had a long, deep convo with gpt5 about using Xerox as a shell corp [to do other things with].

Then in FEB the corp issues warrants [an integral element of my plan]. I bot 20,000 March 20.

XRX has 130,000,000 shares - if every CA Fan bot 1000 shares ( less than $2000.00 ) we would have control.

But we didn't; somebody else did. [to be continued . . .]

We have the Book [college-level textbook by N.J.& D.G.]; the LifeWiki and the Lexicon, as well as LifeViewer [by C.R.] and of course Golly [and the gang]

[so that all who come can develop their own interest along with these Forums -

they will find this post which will put them on the path - in addition to delivering the hype];

the pattern manager software - PatMan - by Bookman [to facilitate pattern sharing];

and the CGoL Art Gallery to cover any artistic interest. [more to come . . .]


OtismO said
Hello Gem !

Gemini said
Hello! I'm ready to help. It looks like you've got a clean "New Tab" page open—are we diving into a new project, or are you just settling in for the day?

What's on your mind?

Would you like me to help you find something specific on the web or organize a task?

University Park, FL, USA

OtismO said
"A.I. on Steroids"

Gemini said
That’s a punchy way to describe the current state of technology. When people say "A.I. on Steroids," they usually aren't talking about one specific app, but rather the massive leap in power we've seen as AI moves from a "fun chatbot" to a "high-speed engine" for almost every industry.

Depending on who you're talking to, it usually refers to one of three things:

1. The "Industrial Revolution on Steroids"
Many experts, including leaders at Google, use this phrase to describe how AI is compressing centuries of progress into decades. While the original Industrial Revolution automated physical labor, this "A.I. on Steroids" era is automating cognitive labor, speeding up everything from coding to scientific discovery at an exponential rate.  

2. Generative AI & LLMs (Large Language Models)
In a technical sense, this refers to how traditional AI (which was mostly used for simple patterns or sorting data) has been "supercharged" into Generative AI.

Old AI: Could tell you if a picture was a cat.

AI on Steroids: Can write the code, compose the music, and simulate the scientific experiments to create a new drug for the cat.

3. Agentic Workflows (The 2026 Trend)
Right now in 2026, the term is frequently linked to Agentic AI. This is the shift from AI that just answers questions to AI that acts independently. Instead of you "prompting" it, these agents orchestrate complex workflows, manage your schedule, or even run parts of a business with minimal human oversight.

Comparison of the "Steroid" Effect

Feature / / / Traditional AI / / / AI "on Steroids" (Now)
Output / / / Predetermined (Yes/No) / / / Creative (Text, Video, Code)
Interaction / / / Passive (Tool) / / / Active (Partner/Agent)
Speed / / / Human-led / / / Autonomous & Concurrent
Data Usage / / / Small, Structured Sets / / / The entire Internet & Synthetic Data

Are you looking to "supercharge" a specific part of your workflow, or were you just curious about the hype?

OtismO said
what do you think of training LLMs on CA to augment their reasoning process gem

Gemini said
Training LLMs on Cellular Automata (CA) is currently one of the most fascinating "blue sky" research areas in AI, particularly as we hit the limits of high-quality human text.

As of early 2026, this approach—often called "Pre-pre-training"—is shifting from a theoretical curiosity to a practical way to build more efficient and logical models. Here is why it’s being hailed as "AI on steroids" for reasoning:

1. Mastering Structure Without the "Noise" of Language
The biggest bottleneck in current LLMs is that they learn reasoning and language simultaneously. This "entangles" logic with social biases and linguistic quirks.

The CA Advantage: By training a model first on the deterministic, rule-based transitions of Neural Cellular Automata (NCA), researchers have found that models develop better computational priors.

Result: Models pre-trained on CA trajectories before seeing a single word of English can converge up to 1.6x faster and score higher on reasoning benchmarks like GSM8K (math) and HumanEval (coding).

2. Emergence at the "Edge of Chaos"
Reasoning is essentially the ability to follow a complex chain of local rules to reach a global conclusion. CA—specifically Elementary Cellular Automata (ECA)—provide a perfect laboratory for this.

Edge of Chaos: Models trained on "Class 4" CA (rules like Rule 110 that are neither too simple nor purely chaotic) show significantly better generalisation abilities.

Transfer Learning: There is evidence that learning to predict the next state of a complex CA grid prepares the model's attention layers to better handle the "logic gates" found in computer code and mathematical proofs.

3. Infinite, High-Quality Synthetic Data
We are running out of high-quality human text. CA provides a way to generate infinite synthetic data that is perfectly labeled and carries deep structural complexity.

Controllability: Unlike scraping the web, you can tune the complexity of CA data to match the target domain. For example, simpler CA dynamics help with code generation, while more complex ones bolster mathematical reasoning.

The "Steroid" Effect: CA vs. Standard Training

Metric / / / Standard Pre-training / / / CA-Augmented Pre-training
Convergence / / / 1.0x (Baseline) / / / ~1.6x Faster
Data Source / / / Finite (Common Crawl) / / / Infinite (Synthetic CA)
Reasoning / / / Emergent from semantics / / / Hard-coded via rule-based logic
Bias High / / / (Human-centric) / / / Zero (Mathematical)

A Note of Caution: While CA-trained models are better at "moving the gears" of logic, they still need natural language to understand what they are reasoning about. Think of CA as the "gym" where the AI builds its logical muscles before it goes out to learn the "encyclopedia" of the world.

Would you like me to find some open-source implementations or papers on "Neural Cellular Automata" so you can see the code behind these patterns?

12:08 PM 3/22/2026

[there is more - but by now you get the drift]

WE are training several LLMs on CA - as well as developing CAcoin - * * * Proprietary-In-House * * *

[optional - but we should do it or someone else will].

This thread has over sixty-eight thousand views - no slouch - and also indicative of the Total Global CA Interest -

My namesake thread, otismo, has over one hundred thousand views - but I rarely post, choosing to edit/add instead

[my goal is to make it a treasure trove for average, regular citizens - who I feel will strongly identify with the content -

in the beginning, I found this community to be somewhat bewildering - but there are members here like dvgrn, who make

folks feel right at home - we have to remember that this is an academic community, and try our best to adopt the spirit of it].

[aivo]

I'm hyped about CGoL, I'm fairly new but I fell in love with the ruleset and I'm working on a dark forest multiplayer version of the game, are links allowed to be posted? I would appreciate some testers when it's ready.

[hotdogPi]

Yes, links are allowed. There are already a few multiplayer versions out there that have been shared on this forum.

[aivo]

Here is the stress test link, I don't have logins fully set up yet but you can create and play:
https://dark-forest-production.up.railway.app/

[otismo]

Yes, links are allowed. There are already a few multiplayer versions out there that have been shared on this forum.

I would like to try the other versions - could people post some links please - Thank You !

<3