A team has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) that can play Minecraft independently. However, the path to this achievement was long.
Artificial intelligence plays a significant role today. For instance, a large MMO company explained how AI could enhance the gaming experience. It is believed that artificial intelligence can master matchmaking better than any human.
However, AI is not only supposed to improve the game itself but also be able to play it autonomously. At least one company has set itself this task. At the end of this experiment, there is an AI that can actually play Minecraft effortlessly.
Company teaches artificial intelligence how to play Minecraft
Who is behind this? OpenAI is a company that focuses on researching artificial intelligence. Now, the company has set itself a unique task: It wanted to find out whether an artificial intelligence can play Minecraft (via openai.com)
What exactly was done? A special method was used, namely Video PreTraining (VPT). The AI learns its actions and procedures by observing videos. For this reason, the developers recorded key presses and mouse movements as well as actions in the inventory.
They chose Minecraft because it is one of the most played games and because there is a lot of video material available on YouTube and other sites that is freely accessible. In total, they used 70,000 hours of video material to train the AI. And it was quite successful.
The AI does not use a special version of Minecraft. Instead, it uses the normal version that is typically played with a mouse and keyboard.
You can watch the entire experiment and the activities of the AI in a video on Vimeo. We have embedded the video here for you:
What can the artificial intelligence do? The AI can easily do many things in Minecraft on its own:
- Chop down trees and make planks
- Build a crafting table
- Swim
- Hunt animals
- Consume food
- Place blocks beneath itself and jump higher on a pillar
The developers also explained that they could constantly improve the AI as more precise data became available. After all, the AI could create tools from wood and stone and build simple shelters. It explored villages, looted chests, and acted as any player would.
However, some experiments with AI are rather frightening. A group of researchers aimed to demonstrate that artificial intelligence can also be dangerous. The AI had designed thousands of chemical weapons in just a few hours:
Researchers want to prove what an evil AI can do – It designs 40,000 chemical weapons in 6 hours
