🚨New paper! 🚨 "The topology of synergy: Linking topological and information-theoretic approaches to higher-order interactions in complex systems" 1/N journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

New paper dropped! Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains. Thomas provides caveats and context below. w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.

For those interested in our growing body of work on "polycomputation", here's my attempt to summarize it in 40 minutes: youtu.be/XnObbF2FkE4?...

Lab member Krishna Srinivasan delivers his very first academic presentation at the @alife2025.bsky.social conference. Go Krishna!

My friend and colleague @drmichaellevin.bsky.social delivering his @alife2025.bsky.social keynote address... Remotely? In person? ...?

Lab member Nate Gaylinn describing evolutionary ramps and ratchets @alife2025.bsky.social... (Paper coming soon...)

Thanks for hosting us Foresight Institute! (w/ @tarinz.bsky.social and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social) www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq2...

#AIForGood attendees: thanks for the great questions about xenobots! Some of you asked about the demo. If you missed it, it's here: tinyurl.com/AI4Good25.

Just arrived at the UN's #AIForGood Symposium in Geneva. Was in time to catch Daniela Rus' talk on AI Governance; I'll be speaking about #xenobots tomorrow. (Joint work w/ Doug Blackiston, @samkriegman.com & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social).

Looking forward to speaking at the first Biohybrid Robotics Conference tomorrow! biohybrid-robotics.com

Lab alumnus @samkriegman.com just won a very prestigious NSF CAREER Award. Congratulations Sam!! www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

Reminder that my book "Evolution of Biological Information", which was pandemically overpriced by @princetonupress.bsky.social, is 50% off until May 31, with the checkout code "BLOOM50". That's a reasonable price. press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

So proud of *Dr.* Caitlin Grasso (www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-g...). She empowered herself by discovering how to empower machines (bit.ly/3Wwloi4). Congratulations again Caitlin.

Can AI drive a shift toward systems that mimic the brain? Can we develop intelligent matter that learns, adapts, and processes information? Check this @nature.com paper @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @doctorjosh.bsky.social ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfil...

Fun time to be in the US academia www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The final #robotics lecture: xenobots. youtu.be/wAEdX1l259k?...

Today's lecture: soft robots and differentiable robots. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHa_...

Today's robotics lecture: evolving bodies and brains. youtu.be/xYL1Dfu0Odo

Snowflake robotics. Presented at the 2025 Embodied Intelligence Conference. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbAq...

Today's #robotics lecture: the evolution of communication. [Fun stuff starts at 27m] youtu.be/JxQTaXSTiqI

Today's lecture: swarm robotics. Again: what could possibly go wrong? youtu.be/R3_QcxO1LO4

We published a new xenobot-related paper today: journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... In a nutshell: building xenobots from frog "explants" is good because explants, apparently, come with adaptive potential "built in". This paper took 6 years and 10 co-authors (see post #2) to reach the light.

Today's lecture: self-replicating #robots. What could go possibly go wrong? youtu.be/IAlGZW4EOnc?...

New pre-print just dropped, with @doctorjosh.bsky.social, @alicepatania.bsky.social, and Pedro Mediano. In it we ask: when an algebraic topologist and an information theorist talk about "higher-order" structure, are they talking about the same thing? A 🧵1/n arxiv.org/abs/2504.10140

Yesterday's #robotics lecture: the Transferability project. youtu.be/aKDmbBzPp7w

Nam Le presents swarm models that show emergence of higher-order evolutionary entities #NERCCS2025

Today's robotics lecture: the Resilient Machines project. youtu.be/miQHlx6-iYc

This was a brilliant conference. Soft robotics, swarms, human and animal behaviour and biology, dinosaurs, you name it. So much to see, videos are online. I'll post a few personal highlights below. Is there a nascent #EmbodiedIntelligence community on Bluesky?

Today's robotics lecture: the GOLEM project. Robots, evolution, 3D printers, Jewish folklore... what's not to love? youtu.be/EOBNAwcdXXo?...

Yesterday's #robotics lecture: mind the (reality) gap! youtu.be/yK36d3WlDQ4

Great example of embodied cognition demonstrated by Thrishantha Nanayakkara just now at the embodied-intelligence.org conference: youtu.be/oZbZZlDDEnc

The Embodied Intelligence conference embodied-intelligence.org starts tomorrow. Looking forward to re/connecting with old/new friends and colleagues.

Today's #robotics lecture: the NEAT algorithm, contd. Fun stuff starts at 37m54s: youtu.be/wWSD_Cw1gk4?...

Causal understanding is not a point of view, it’s a point of do – aeon.co/essays/causa... via @aeonmag

Today's lecture: passive dynamic locomotion. youtu.be/5cTg0ruy2Og?...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnoa... Bio-Inspired Plastic Neural Nets that continually adapt their own synaptic strengths can make for extremely robust locomotion policies! Trained exclusively in simulation, the plastic networks transfer easily to the real world, even under various extra OOD situations.

Today's evolutionary #robotics lecture: bipedal locomotion. In which John Cleese and yours truly demonstrate several silly walks. youtu.be/4o9CZK8Azcw

Now #IEEEALIFECIS2025 officially kicks off! Stefano Nichele introduces IEEE ALIFE-CIS keynote Luca Manzoni, who discusses the true origin of ALIFE, the work by Nils Barricelli

#IEEESSCI2025 first keynote Metin Sitti discusses the importance of physical body in intelligence

Stand Up for Science Burlington, Vermont

✊ #StandUpForScience

Why don't plants have brains? Answers in today's evolutionary #robotics lecture. youtu.be/u2xL0tBTG3U

1/46 Hey folks, we have a new paper out on the MuLTEE. Strap in and I’ll tell you the story of how this “little paper on polyploidy” turned into the most data rich paper our lab has produced, largely thanks to the leadership and work ethic of @kaitong25.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@drmichaellevin.bsky.social presents to the United Nations on how xenobots (Doug Blackiston & @samkriegman.com), anthrobots (Gizem Gumuskaya), and other discoveries from his lab can serve as "agential materials" that AI can employ to interface with the body. www.youtube.com/live/T40utCZ...

Last Thursday's #robotics lecture: active categorical perception. #GetAGrip youtu.be/BKzOfR9zWCc

Today's #robotics lecture: selective attention. Now that I've posted this, I should get back to what I was working on before... ...if only I could remember what that was. youtu.be/BKzOfR9zWCc

Every single philanthropic institution needs to do this rather than retracting right now. abcnews-go-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/abcnews....

Today's evolutionary #robotics lecture: Minimal cognition. Continued. youtu.be/uWh07Cp5Ynk?...

What would you love to know about evolving #robot brains and bodies ? 🤖 Later this season, I'll be chatting to Prof. Emma Hart from Edinburgh Napier University about algorithms that 'evolve' better robot designs and control systems. Send me your questions for Emma in the comments. #Robotics

Today's evolutionary #robotics lecture: minimal cognition. youtu.be/B_rKZZe3KOI?...