A simple set of rules can generate complex, emergent behavior. This is the essence of cellular automata, formalized by John von Neumann in 1948 and popularized by John Conway’s Game of Life in 1970.SmoothLife, a continuous cellular automaton, implemented in WebGPUDespite being simple to implement, cellular automata demonstrate complex, almost life-like behavior. Their inherently parallel nature makes them especially well-suited to modern GPUs.This article takes a tour through various cellular au...