iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Kriegman

@samkriegman.com

Northwestern University assistant professor. Interested in evolution, robots, AI and ALife. www.xenobot.group

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 17/08/2026

If you’re in Waterloo for #alife2026 check out David's talk on "Zero-Shot Robot Design with Residual Physics" residual-design.github.io 🗓️ Wed Aug 19 ⏰ 10:40am 📍 LH1010

000

Reposted by Sam Kriegman

New Scientist @newscientist.com · 16/07/2026

A drone that spins 25 times a second attempts can avoid being spotted by becoming nothing more than a vague blur – though the creators admit that it can still be easily heard

newscientist.com

Stealth drone spins so fast that it disappears | New Scientist

A drone that spins 25 times a second attempts can avoid being spotted by becoming nothing more than a vague blur – though the creators admit that it can still be easily heard

083

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 08/03/2026

The space of possible bodies was encoded into a latent design “genome”. Evolution was inspired by Bayesian rather than Darwinian theory.

020

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 08/03/2026

Here’s another favorite of mine. This one has a less familiar form. It evolved to move on land but really wants to try swimming someday.

100

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 08/03/2026

Here is one of my favorite creatures that evolved. We call it “the seal” (aka Lucille).

100

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 08/03/2026

Here’s a peak inside the module:

100

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 08/03/2026

Here they are showing off some of their acrobatic behaviors, resisting adversarial perturbations, and withstanding body-altering damage. (Control policies use internal sensing only; motion capture was not supplied to the policy, it was used only for behavioral analyses.)

110

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 08/03/2026

These are legged metamachines, legged machines made of legged machines… Website: modularlegs.github.io Paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

171

Reposted by Sam Kriegman

Ritu Raman @rituraman.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Always a blast introducing new folks to the history + future of #biohybrid #robotics - today at the University of Bristol SoftLab Seminar! Great to get feedback on what we've done so far + an exciting reminder of how much we have left to keep us busy in the coming decades 😊

062

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 15/06/2025

Thanks Josh! It truly would not have been possible without you.

010

Reposted by Sam Kriegman

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

The Genomic Code: the genome instantiates a generative model of the organism www.cell.com/trends/genet... - really delighted to see this in print in @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social! 😊

cell.com

The Genomic Code: the genome instantiates a generative model of the organism

How does the genome encode the form of the organism? What is the nature of this genomic code? Inspired by recent work in machine learning and neuroscience, we propose that the genome encodes a generat...

515955

Reposted by Sam Kriegman

Kyrre Glette @kyrre2000.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Our new neuroscience paper - hot off the press! Check it out! 🧠🧠🧠💻💻💻

092

Reposted by Sam Kriegman

Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

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

youtu.be

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 16. Bipedal locomotion.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

081

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 19/02/2025

New paper w/ Luke Strgar sites.google.com/view/co-desi... ...in a nutshell: ⛰️ differentiable physics 🏋️ morphological pretraining 🧠 a universal controller 🧬 zero shot evolution 💡 adaptive phototaxis ☠️ diversity collapse 🔧 generational finetuning 🦘 few shot evolution

062

Sam Kriegman @samkriegman.com · 03/02/2025

Muhan Li will present his freeform endoskeletal robots at ICLR in April: endoskeletal.github.io Evolve yours at home today!

021