Minecraft to Host the Future of AI Development

Now, this here is interesting. Pay attention kids, some crazy stuff's about to go down.

So, back in September of 2014, Microsoft first announced that they had purchased Mojang and their now world famous title Minecraft for around 2.5 Billion USD. Which is, for those of you not big into math or economics, “a whole lot of cheddar”. The purchase was viewed as a betrayal by some, but by others, it seemed more suspicious. Minecraft had already made MOST of the money Minecraft would ever make, so either Microsoft was trying to really up the merchandising or they had some alternative plan with the IP. And since then, weve seen them do some pretty interesting stuff with Minecraft, including marketing stuff, an educational edition, a spin-off with Telltale…

But that was nothing, compared to this: Microsoft has recently announced that they will be using Minecraft as a platform to develop and test the future of artificial intelligence.

So you're probably thinking that's not so special. Video games have been using AI for a long time now, it's how we program our enemies and such--the difference is, that this AI program, based off the AIX software platform that lets AI control player characters--that the world of Minecraft is so open ended, and there are so many options and solutions to the many problems in the game, that watching the AI develop as it works to solve these problems will be both informative and fascinating. But that's just the tip of the iceberg: AIX principle software engineer Matthew Johnson explains that this AI program will be designed to work in the first person.
 

"It allows you to have 'embodied AI'. So, rather than have a situation where the AI sees an avatar of itself, it can actually be inside, looking out through the eyes of something that is living in the world. We think this is an essential part of building this kind of general intelligence."

But that's just the first step. Microsoft eventually wants to release AIX into the general population to cooperate and coordinate with humans. Katja Hofmann of Microsoft Research's Cambridge lab says:
 

"People build amazing structures that do amazing things in Minecraft, and this allows experimenters to put in tasks that will stretch AI technology beyond its current capacity. But eventually, we will be able to scale this up further to include tasks that allow AI agents to learn to collaborate with humans and support them in a creative manner. This provides a way to take AI from where it is today up to human-level intelligence, which is where we want to be, in several decades time."

Exciting stuff! And it's really cool to think that video games may be the crucible in which we forge the future of our eventual AI overlords. I'll be watching this project develop eagerly, and I will keep you all posted as it develops!