Generative Adversarial Neural Cellular Automata
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Abstract (arXiv)
Motivated by the interaction between cells, the recently introduced concept of Neural Cellular Automata shows promising results in a variety of tasks. So far, this concept was mostly used to generate images for a single scenario. As each scenario requires a new model, this type of generation seems contradictory to the adaptability of cells in nature. To address this contradiction, we introduce a concept using different initial environments as input while using a single Neural Cellular Automata to produce several outputs. Additionally, we introduce GANCA, a novel algorithm that combines Neural Cellular Automata with Generative Adversarial Networks, allowing for more generalization through adversarial training. The experiments show that a single model is capable of learning several images when presented with different inputs, and that the adversarially trained model improves drastically on out-of-distribution data compared to a supervised trained model.
Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 9 of its 18 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Jul 2021.
Builds on
9 of 18 references.
References · 9
- 2015Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognitioncited by 51,809
- 2014Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognitioncited by 15,267
- 2016Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 4,510
- 2016Improved Techniques for Training GANscited by 2,938
- 2014Conditional Generative Adversarial Netscited by 2,152
- 2015Unsupervised Representation Learning with Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 2,048
- 2019On Stabilizing Generative Adversarial Training with Noisecited by 25
- 2014On distinguishability criteria for estimating generative modelscited by 20
- 2020Image segmentation via Cellular Automatacited by 14
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 3; 2025: 3; 2026: 3.
10 papers.
- 2023Self-Replication, Spontaneous Mutations, and Exponential Genetic Drift in Neural Cellular Automatacited by 8
- 2024Frequency-Time Diffusion with Neural Cellular Automatacited by 8
- 2024NoiseNCA: Noisy Seed Improves Spatio-Temporal Continuity of Neural Cellular Automatacited by 7
- 2025Neural Cellular Automata: From Cells to Pixelscited by 5
- 2024AdaNCA: Neural Cellular Automata As Adaptors For More Robust Vision Transformercited by 4
- 2025MedSegDiffNCA: Diffusion Models With Neural Cellular Automata for Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 2
- 2026A New Kind of Network? Review and Reference Implementation of Neural Cellular Automatacited by 2
- 2026Coarse to Fine: Iterative Adversarial Neural Cellular Automata for Medical Image Synthesiscited by 1
- 2025Missing Data Imputation using Neural Cellular Automatacited by 0
- 2026Applications of Neural Cellular Automata: State of the Art, Challenges and Opportunitiescited by 0
- 2026Applications of Neural Cellular Automata: State of the Art, Challenges and Opportunities21 Sep 2026
- 2026Coarse to Fine: Iterative Adversarial Neural Cellular Automata for Medical Image Synthesis28 Aug 2026
- 2026A New Kind of Network? Review and Reference Implementation of Neural Cellular Automata27 Apr 2026
- 2025Missing Data Imputation using Neural Cellular Automata31 Aug 2025
- 2025Neural Cellular Automata: From Cells to Pixels28 Jun 2025
- 2025MedSegDiffNCA: Diffusion Models With Neural Cellular Automata for Skin Lesion Segmentation5 Jan 2025
- 2024AdaNCA: Neural Cellular Automata As Adaptors For More Robust Vision Transformer12 Jun 2024
- 2024NoiseNCA: Noisy Seed Improves Spatio-Temporal Continuity of Neural Cellular Automata9 Apr 2024
- 2024Frequency-Time Diffusion with Neural Cellular Automata11 Jan 2024
- 2023Self-Replication, Spontaneous Mutations, and Exponential Genetic Drift in Neural Cellular Automata22 May 2023