{"id":22095,"date":"2026-02-24T10:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/anlife-what-does-an-unusual-evolution-simulator-have-to-say-about-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:37:22","slug":"anlife-what-does-an-unusual-evolution-simulator-have-to-say-about-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/anlife-what-does-an-unusual-evolution-simulator-have-to-say-about-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Anlife: what does an unusual evolution simulator have to say about AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We explore the strange food-obsessed world of a new game whose tech was once called \u2018an insult to life itself\u2019 by Hayao Miyazaki, the film-maker behind Spirited Away<\/p>\n

A strange piece of software has recently landed on the PC gaming store Steam. And \u201csoftware\u201d feels like the cleanest way to describe it. Existing somewhere between a full-blown life sim, a science project and a kind of haunted fish tank, Anlife: Motion-learning Life Evolution<\/a> probably would have disappeared without making much impact if it wasn\u2019t for one unusual factor. Several years ago some of its creators were absolutely roasted on camera by one of the genuine legends of Japanese animation.<\/p>\n

Back in 2016, Hayao Miyazaki, the director of movies such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, was shown new technology that used AI in order to animate models. Faced with a zombie that utilised its head to move by knocking its skull against the ground and wriggling its body like a fish, Miyazaki declared what he had seen was \u201can insult to life itself\u201d. It\u2019s hard not to watch the clip without feeling slightly seared \u2013 but now, a decade later, the ashen-faced developers from that room have sufficiently recovered to make their work widely available.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nWe explore the strange food-obsessed world of a new game whose tech was once called \u2018an insult to life itself\u2019 by Hayao Miyazaki, the film-maker behind Spirited Away
\nA strange piece of software has recently landed on the PC gaming store Steam. And \u201csoftware\u201d feels like the cleanest way to describe it. Existing somewhere between a full-blown life sim, a science project and a kind of haunted fish tank, Anlife: Motion-learning Life Evolution probably would have disappeared without making much impact if it wasn\u2019t for one unusual factor. Several years ago some of its creators were absolutely roasted on camera by one of the genuine legends of Japanese animation.
\nBack in 2016, Hayao Miyazaki, the director of movies such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, was shown new technology that used AI in order to animate models. Faced with a zombie that utilised its head to move by knocking its skull against the ground and wriggling its body like a fish, Miyazaki declared what he had seen was \u201can insult to life itself\u201d. It\u2019s hard not to watch the clip without feeling slightly seared \u2013 but now, a decade later, the ashen-faced developers from that room have sufficiently recovered to make their work widely available. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We explore the strange food-obsessed world of a new game whose tech was once called \u2018an insult to life itself\u2019 by Hayao Miyazaki, the film-maker behind Spirited Away A strange piece of software has recently landed on the PC gaming store Steam. And \u201csoftware\u201d feels like the cleanest way to describe it. Existing somewhere between …<\/p>\n

Anlife: what does an unusual evolution simulator have to say about AI?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22095"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}