Virtual Creatures Competition

To be held at ALIFE 2024

SUBMISSION DEADLINE : June 10, 2024

Past winners

Karl Sims' pioneering virtual creatures work

Since the early 1990’s, virtual creatures have captured the imagination of artists, engineers, philosophers and scientists. Virtual creatures can now be found in our favorite animated movies, the design of useful robots and novel organisms, and the genesis of better explanations of nature and all of its creatures.

Be part of the next generation of virtual creatures: Enter the 2024 Virtual Creatures Competition (VCC)!

Thinkers, builders, and artists should submit a short film (under five minutes) of their latest simulated artificial lifeforms as well as a one page summary of their work. Submissions will be judged on their contribution to science (new explanatory theories), engineering (technical achievement), and art (aesthetic appeal). Competition results will be announced at the VCC session at ALIFE 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Submission link: click here to make a submission!

Need inspiration? Check out our archive page for past winners!

Sponsor: A stealth R&D entity focusing on artificial life and virtual creatures at scale

Prize: $250, exclusive branded merchandise, and an exciting opportunity for a job interview

Daniel Dennett

Philosopher, Cognitive Scientist

Tufts University

Rest in peace, Daniel Dennett.

Daniel Dennett was a huge inspiration to generations of scientists, and a huge proponent of artificial life studies.

His peer review from 1978, Why Not the Whole Iguana?, was far ahead of his time and pre-empted many subfields of artificial life:

"Considering the abstractness of the problems properly addressed in AI, one can put this attitude in a better light: one does not want to get bogged down with technical problems in modeling the cognitive eccentricities of turtles if the point of the exercise is to uncover very general, very abstract principles that will apply as well to the cognitive organization of the most sophisticated human beings. So why not then make up a whole cognitive creature, a Martian three-wheeled iguana, say, and an environmental niche for it to cope with? I think such a project could teach us a great deal about the deep principles of human cognitive psychology, but if it could not, I am quite sure that most of the current A I modeling of familiar human mini-tasks could not either."

In many ways, this competition was inspired by his vision in 1978. Needless to say, he will no longer serve as a competition judge.

Confirmed Judges