Google claims it's been able to simulate 'self-replicating' digital life, but its 'primordial soup' needs a pinch of salt

A figure which appears in "Computational Life: How Well-formed, Self-replicating Programs Emerge from Simple Interaction."
A figure which shows a "wave of self-replicators" overtaking the so-called "primordial soup" created by researchers. (Image credit: Google, Paradigms of Intelligence Team and The University of Chicago)

Google researchers claim that, in an experiment simulating what happens when you leave a bunch of code strings alone for millions of generations, they've observed the emergence of "self-replicators" from what began as non self-replicating code chunks.  New Scientist rather implausibly claims this "could mirror—or at least shed light on—the emergence of actual biological life."

Hm. This is one of those studies where the experiment and findings definitely feel consequential, but at the same time need some heavy caveating. Google has not somehow simulated the emergence of life as it happened on Earth. What its researchers may have possibly done is suggest a new theory for how non-living molecules could come together to form living molecules, ie, how biological life ever began at all.

The news comes from a recently published paper titled "Computational Life: How Well-formed, Self-replicating Programs Emerge from Simple Interaction." The raw material for the experiments is tens of thousands of pieces of code, written in a programming language called—I'm not making this up—Brainfuck. The researchers call this an "esoteric language chosen for its simplicity" in only allowing two mathematical functions: +1 or -1. These chunks of code were randomly mixed, combined, and "left to execute code and overwrite themselves and neighbors based on their own instructions" over millions of generations.

The expected result was no result, that the code would all remain random with no particular trends. Instead, self-replicating programs emerged, which self-replicated themselves over multiple generations to swiftly hit the experiment's population cap.

That's not all: in the above scenario, new types of replicators often emerged, and in some cases out-performed and replaced the previous self-replicator.

Google's Ben Laurie, one of the study's authors, told New Scientist that what's special about this experiment is that it didn't have any parameters beyond the randomness: “It all fizzes around and then suddenly: boom, they’re all the same," he said of the self-replicators.

"I don’t think anything magic happened," says Laurie. "Physics occurred, and it just occurred a lot over a very long time, and it gave rise to some very complicated things."

Laurie does go on to say that scaling up the experiment, in terms of adding further complexity to behaviours like predator/prey relationships and the timescale, is not going to happen with current levels of computing power: "It's going to require so much compute that we're not going to practically do it."

Dr. Richard Watson, an evolutionary scientist who specialises in the algorithmic underpinnings of life and societies, says this is all "very cool" but quickly fetches a pail of cold water.

"The complexity, as they measure it, goes up after the onset of the self-replicator. But it's not clear that it 'takes off' in an interesting way," says Watson. "Self-replication is important, but it would be a mistake to believe it’s a magic bullet from which everything else that's exciting about life follows automatically."

Others were more positive, however, with the distinguished computer scientist Professor Susan Stepney calling the experiments that produced self-replicators "a great achievement."

"This is definitely a great step towards understanding potential routes to the origin of life, here in a medium quite removed from the standard 'wetware' of biology," Stepney said.

It certainly feels like Google's researchers have discovered something of importance, but the extrapolations from that can be a little buckwild. It arguably doesn't help with the latter that the research team chose to use terms like "primordial soup", knowing what people would infer from that. As for whether this study will be a stepping stone towards working out how organic molecules ever formed in the first place… well, we may need to wait for a few more generations' worth of computing power, and even then.

Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
The Cortical Labs CL1 biological computer
The world's first 'body in a box' biological computer costs $35,000 and looks both cool as hell plus creepy as heck
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 06: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event on November 06, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Altman delivered the keynote address at the first-ever Open AI DevDay conference.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
In a mere decade 'everyone on Earth will be capable of accomplishing more than the most impactful person can today' says OpenAI boss Sam Altman
CHONGQING, CHINA - OCTOBER 30: In this photo illustration - The Facebook app page is displayed on a smartphone in the Apple App Store in front of the Meta Platforms, inc. logo on October 30, 2024 in Chongqing, China. (Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images)
Meta might've done something useful, pioneering an AI model that can interpret brain activity into sentences with 80% accuracy
Closeup of the new Copilot key coming to Windows 11 PC keyboards
Microsoft co-authored paper suggests the regular use of gen-AI can leave users with a 'diminished skill for independent problem-solving' and at least one AI model seems to agree
The OpenAI logo is being displayed on a smartphone with an AI brain visible in the background, in this photo illustration taken in Brussels, Belgium, on January 2, 2024. (Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
OpenAI is working on a new AI model Sam Altman says is ‘good at creative writing’ but to me it reads like a 15-year-old's journal
Abstract image with a wireframe humanoid face on a digital art background
The 2012 source code for AlexNet, the precursor to modern AI, is now on Github thanks to Google and the Computer History Museum
Latest in Software
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Microsoft's iconic Bliss wallpaper
From pixels to pinot: The Windows XP 'Bliss' wallpaper hill was real and this is what it looks like now
Napster client circa 1999
Former music-pirating platform Napster to be reborn rather ironically as a metaverse for musicians to connect with their fans after $207 million deal
New Discord desktop client themes.
Discord drops big update with 'completely new' in-game overlay and new dark themes for the desktop client
Image for
'No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense': Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth uses decoy pages to trap web-crawling bots and feed them slop 'as a defensive weapon'
A screenshot from game Mudborne of a little humanoid frog in a marsh
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 24, 2025)
Latest in News
Greedfall 2
Greedfall 2 aims to turn around a disastrous early access launch with a combat overhaul and a big new boat
Nova, a hero from Marvel Comics, smolders at the camera while surrounded by flames.
The team behind Shredder's Revenge has a Marvel beat 'em up on the way with a whopping 15 characters and unsurprisingly gorgeous pixel art
Kinich, a character in Genshin Impact, stands prepared to brawl with an enemy.
'Diabolical': Genshin Impact's English cast gives new VO the cold shoulder after he frames replacing a striking actor as an 'opportunity to carry the flame'
An image of Alan Wake from Alan Wake 2's rock opera-style song, Herald of Darkness, lifting a hand to the sky while the other bundles on his chest.
Epic’s 2025 Spring Sale kicks off with some big discounts on recent hits and a pair of cat-themed giveaways
An army of Grand Cathay, including infantry, cavalry, and warmachines, from the tabletop wargame Warhammer: The Old World.
After a not-so-subtle tease 2 months ago, and 4 years since it was originally announced, Grand Cathay from Total War: Warhammer 3 is finally coming to the tabletop wargame
1X Technologies humanoid robot, the Neo Gamma, standing alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Huang is wearing an ERL-made studded leather jacket.
Humanoid robot Neo Gamma gifts Nvidia CEO a studded leather jacket and may even be able to one day wash up a cup without dropping it