Santa Fe Institute

sfiscience.bsky.social

27 February 2026 06:19

Some computers are easy to spot — smartphones, laptops, the machines we build. But many natural systems — cells, brains, even turbulent fluids — carry out computations too. A new paper by SFI’s David Wolpert and Jan Korbel explores these computations encoded in natural dynamic systems.

Santa Fe Institute

sfiscience.bsky.social

16 February 2026 23:41

A new study by SFI and MIT researchers shows that as systems grow, from cells to governments, the pace of adding new functions steadily slows. Though they vary in how much they invest in novelty, once new functions exist, subsequent growth follows a universal pattern known as sublinear growth.

Melanie Mitchell

melaniemitchell.bsky.social

12 February 2026 18:32

I enjoyed this fun discussion with Meghna Chakrabarti and @kmahowald.bsky.social about thinking, human or machine, on WBUR's On Point show. (Top of page is condensed version, scroll down to "On Point Full Broadcast" for full version.) www.wbur.org/onpoint/2026...

Paul Smaldino

psmaldino.bsky.social

02 July 2025 01:53

New preprint w/ Nathan Gabriel & @avbell.bsky.social: The Evolution of Identity Signals for Coordination in Diverse Societies The model tackles multiple nested/overlapping identities and complex signaling structure. Recovers lots of old results and adds several new ones osf.io/preprints/so...

Santa Fe Institute

sfiscience.bsky.social

02 May 2025 23:48

Mastering a skill can take decades, but learning unfolds across timescales from moments to days. A new paper by three former SFI postdocs presents a theoretical model of nested timescales of learning, offering a unified, multi-scale account of skill acquisition. www.santafe.edu/news-center/...