They are a novelty that is often surprising in the how their simple set of rules can lead to quite amazing emergent complexity. That the one-time chaotic game o

They are a novelty that is often surprising in the how their simple set of rules can lead to quite amazing emergent complexity. That the one-time chaotic game of life was eventually shown to be able to stably infinitely expand and be turing complete is quite interesting. I don't know that they'll ever be useful for efficient computation, but they will likely always remain fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 I have not read it myself, but I know that Stephen Wolfram ( of Mathematica/Wolfram Alpha) laid out some arguments for the usefulness of studying cellular automata in his early 2000s book "A New Kind of Science".