Gabriel Béna 🌻

Gabriel Béna 🌻

@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Postoc at Insitute of Neuro-Informatics in Zurich, with Melika Payvand. Pretending to be a neuro guy. Working on self-organising and self-healing hardware. Trying to make biology re-emerge through genomic rules in silicon.

409 followers401 following95 posts

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Dan Goodman
@neural-reckoning.org

If you're in or near London do think about coming along to this. Not just a talk about a really fun topic (neural heterogeneity) but a chance to grill the author (me) on whether we learn anything with the theoretical methods he's used, and indeed whether the questions he poses are even meaningful.

Marcus Ghosh@marcusghosh.bsky.social

Our final workshop will be @crick.ac.uk 🔜 10.09 from 16:00. With a talk and discussion hosted by @neural-reckoning.org on: 🧠 Does heterogeneity help the brain and how could we know if it did? Registration is free but required: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/understand...

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

ALIFE 2026 Proceedings of the paper now available !! direct.mit.edu/isal/proceed...

direct.mit.eduSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsFault tolerance in classical computing has traditionally relied on static strategies like hardware redundancy and error-correcting codes. Biological systems, in contrast, exhibit adaptive plasticity, ...
Gabriel Béna 🌻@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
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Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

I'm presenting all of this TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026 — if you're here, come heckle 🎤 And the long game? Self-healing hardware: FPGAs, neuromorphic chips… maybe something that keeps computing on a deep-space probe no one can reboot. 🛰️

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Huge ❤️ to my co-author Marcello Barylli, and to Alexander Mordvintsev (who dreamt up the original differentiable circuits), Eleni Nisioti, and @risi.bsky.social. 📄 Self-Organising Digital Circuits, #ALIFE2026 (in press today) 🔗 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ #NCA #ALife #SelfOrg

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
View full thread
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Why care? Because damage, device drift, and a brand-new task are secretly the same problem: "the current config stopped working — find another that does." One local rule that hops between working configs = a compiler + a repair crew + a lifelong learner, all in one. 🔧🩹📚

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Enough talk — go break it yourself 🎮 The demo runs the real trained model in your browser (no server, no cap). Click a gate to kill it. Hit Shotgun/Shuffle for chaos. Watch the truth tables rewire live and the accuracy (hopefully) crawl back.

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
View full thread
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

And also, it's scale-free in the best way: train on tiny 264-gate circuits, deploy on 450+ gates it's never seen… and accuracy goes UP 📈 Turns out "learn a local rule" generalizes way better than "memorize a big circuit." Who knew. (biology knew.)

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

We mapped 50,000 healed circuits — all computing the same function, all perfect. SODC (left): a galaxy of distinct solution "archetypes”, a whole neutral landscape. Backprop (right): one lonely blob. Degeneracy, visualized.

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
View full thread
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

This change flips everything: A target pattern admits ONE answer. A target function admits MANY. Every wiring that computes f is equally "correct" → the solution space is drenched in degeneracy. The exact thing biology leans on. We didn't add it. We just stopped forbidding it.

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

So naturally, we shot the circuit. Repeatedly. 🔫 The wild part: when a gate dies, SODC does not restore the original. It hops to a different configuration that computes the same function. Repair ≠ rewind. Repair = find another way.

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
View full thread
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Here's my whole NCA arc in one breath: 🖼️ NCA: grow a pattern (answer lives in the pixels) 🧮 UNCA: compute many functions (but the answer still lives in the cells) 🔌 SODC: the cells stop holding the answer and start emulating the computation! gabrielbena.github.io/blog/2025/b...

gabrielbena.github.ioA Path to Universal Neural Cellular AutomataExploring how neural cellular automata can develop continuous universal computation through training by gradient descent
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

The move: make every cell a logic gate: its state IS the truth table (a small look-up table). The NCA is no longer the computer. It's the tiny, decentralized optimizer that assembles + repairs the circuit, one local message at a time. No global backprop at deploy — just forward passes. ⚡

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
View full thread
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Biology refuses to play that game. Lose a chunk of tissue and the brain doesn't reach for a backup: it reroutes, recovering the same function through different parts. The trick has a name: degeneracy: many different structures, one same function. 🧬 (hold that thought)

Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

Quick recall: an NCA = a grid of cells, each seeing only its neighbours, all running the SAME learned rule. None told its job, yet they specialise: an eye here, a tail there. A lizard 🦎 grows from one pixel; halve it, it regrows. grow → persist → repair distill.pub/2020/growin...

distill.pubGrowing Neural Cellular AutomataTraining an end-to-end differentiable, self-organising cellular automata model of morphogenesis, able to both grow and regenerate specific patterns.
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

🤖 🧠 🧪 New paper! I'm presenting it TOMORROW at #ALIFE2026! What if a chip could heal itself the way a brain does: not with a spare part, but by rewiring around the wound? Meet Self-Organising Digital Circuits. 👉 self-organising-circuits.github.io/ (go murder some logic gates, I'll explain) 🧵⬇️

self-organising-circuits.github.ioSelf-Organising Digital CircuitsExtending the Neural Cellular Automata paradigm from pattern formation on grids to functional logic generation and self-repair on arbitrary graphs.
Gabriel Béna 🌻
@solarpunkgabs.bsky.social

How does today's hardware survive faults? Brilliantly, but by anticipating them: redundant cores, spare memory rows, error-correcting codes. Decades of impressive engineering. The catch: it only covers failures you modelled in advance. Go past the budget and it breaks — hard. 💥

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Marcus Ghosh
@marcusghosh.bsky.social

Now published @commsaicomp.nature.com with @neural-reckoning.org We: 🤖 Define a taxonomy of neural network architectures (here 128 unique structures) 🦾 Train > 25,000 models on different navigation tasks #RL 🧠 Link each architecture's behaviour to its memory dynamics doi.org/10.1038/s444...

Marcus Ghosh@marcusghosh.bsky.social

How does the structure of a neural circuit shape its function? @neuralreckoning.bsky.social & I explore this in our new preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🤖🧠🧪 🧵1/9

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Marcel
@marcelaiphan.bsky.social

Honte éternelle au bloc bourgeois qui a repris en toute conscience les mensonges des nazis www.franceinfo.fr/faits-divers...

franceinfo.frDeux des mis en examen dans la mort de Quentin Deranque déposent plainte contre des militants d'ultradroite pour des violencesL'avocat de Jacques-Élie Favrot, l'ancien assistant parlementaire du député LFI Raphaël Arnault, mis en examen pour complicité de meurtre par instigation, dénonce sur France Inter une "entreprise de d...

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

WeRateDogs
@weratedogs.com

This is Oreo. He will eventually eat the blueberry. But first he must establish dominance over it. 12/10 (TT: oreominibernedoodle)

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Attac France
@attac.org

Face à la montée des tensions lors des rassemblements pour le 8 mars, nous, syndicats et associations, demandons au ministre de l’intérieur Laurent Nuñez d’interdire la présence du collectif Némésis dans nos manifestations. france.attac.org/se-mobiliser...

france.attac.orgLettre ouverte à Laurent Nuñez : Nous demandons l’interdiction de la présence de Némésis aux manifestations du 8 marsFace à la montée des tensions lors des rassemblements pour la journée internationale des droits des femmes, nous, syndicats et associations, alertons sur les risques de débordements liés à la présence...

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Thomas Lemahieu
@thomaslemahieu.bsky.social

« On peut être deux, trois filles à tracter là où vous voulez les choper, un peu pour faire l’appât. » Révélations @humanite.fr sur les conversations secrètes, à Lyon, entre Némésis et les néofascistes pour tendre des pièges à la gauche et aux antifascistes. www.humanite.fr/politique/an...

humanite.frDans les conversations secrètes entre Némésis et des néonazis pour agresser des militants de gauche à Lyon - L'HumanitéÀ Lyon, dans des échanges internes datant de l’automne dernier, que l’Humanité dévoile aujourd’hui, les fémonationalistes et d’autres groupuscules d’extrême droite planifiai...

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Marcel
@marcelaiphan.bsky.social

Tous les médias devraient être en boucle là-dessus mais rien… ➡️ www.humanite.fr/politique/an...

humanite.frDans les conversations secrètes entre Némésis et des néonazis pour agresser des militants de gauche à Lyon - L'HumanitéÀ Lyon, dans des échanges internes datant de l’automne dernier, que l’Humanité dévoile aujourd’hui, les fémonationalistes et d’autres groupuscules d’extrême droite planifiai...

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Ben Collins
@bencollins.bsky.social

This is a really good debate format for like 50 different reasons, but especially at this moment. There's a lot of equivocating over stuff that is not that complicated.

Kat Abughazaleh@katmabu.bsky.social

✨ It’s a yes or no question ✨

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Attac France
@attac.org

⚠️ Scandale Amélie de Montchalin a été nommée première présidente de la Cour des comptes par Emmanuel Macron. Signez la lettre ouverte au président de la République pour exiger le retrait de cette nomination qui piétine la démocratie et l'Etat de droit👇 france.attac.org/actus-et-med...

france.attac.org[Je signe ✍️] Amélie de Montchalin, de Bercy à la Cour des comptes, c'est non !Ce mercredi 11 février, Amélie de Montchalin a été nommée première présidente de la Cour des comptes par Emmanuel Macron. Signez notre lettre ouverte au président de la République pour exiger le retra...

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

CMC Unit
@cmc-unit.bsky.social

For the first Learning Club @cmc-lab.bsky.social in 2026, @marcusghosh.bsky.social on Jan 15, Thu, 2pm CET, will tell us about his recent paper (👇) [joint work w/ @neural-reckoning.org]. Want to attend, send an empty email to virtual talk-link-request@cmclab.org to get the link!

Marcus Ghosh@marcusghosh.bsky.social

How does the structure of a neural circuit shape its function? @neuralreckoning.bsky.social & I explore this in our new preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🤖🧠🧪 🧵1/9

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Kat Abughazaleh
@katmabu.bsky.social

Our first ad of 2026! Because politics stuck in 2006 won't meet the moment. It's time to stand up to ICE, white supremacists, and the billionaire oligarchy.

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Kat Abughazaleh
@katmabu.bsky.social

Democrats need to grow a f*cking spine. No more strongly worded letters. It’s time to draft articles of impeachment. Impeach. Convict. Remove.

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Marcus Ghosh
@marcusghosh.bsky.social

Toy models, just in time for Christmas! Excited to share my first article for @thetransmitter.bsky.social #neuroskyence

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social

Amid the rise of billion-parameter models, I argue that toy models, with just a few neurons, remain essential—and may be all neuroscience needs, writes @marcusghosh.bsky.social. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/theoretical-...

thetransmitter.orgNot playing around: Why neuroscience needs toy modelsAmid the rise of billion-parameter models, I argue that toy models, with just a few neurons, remain essential—and may be all neuroscience needs.

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Dan Goodman
@neural-reckoning.org

Psst - neuromorphic folks. Did you know that you can solve the SHD dataset with 90% accuracy using only 22 kb of parameter memory by quantising weights and delays? Check out our preprint with @pengfei-sun.bsky.social and @danakarca.bsky.social, or read the TLDR below. 👇🤖🧠🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2510.27434

arxiv.orgExploiting heterogeneous delays for efficient computation in low-bit neural networksNeural networks rely on learning synaptic weights. However, this overlooks other neural parameters that can also be learned and may be utilized by the brain. One such parameter is the delay: the brain...

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Bon Pote
@bonpote.com

« Il n’y a pas de violences policières », nous dit Gérald Darmanin. Voici une vidéo avec des extraits des gendarmes à Sainte Soline grâce à Mediapart Des mensonges d’Etat. Ce gouvernement doit rendre des comptes.

Gabriel Béna 🌻 reposted

Bon Pote
@bonpote.com

"Sale chien" "Ta mère la pute" "il l'a prise en pleine gueule, cheh" "Des merdes comme ça, il faut les brûler" "Faut qu'on les tue" Cette vidéo des gendarmes à Sainte-Soline est à partager un maximum. Darmanin et tout le gouvernement Macron doivent rendre des comptes www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT8j...