Turns out that’s not all as Microsoft has announced Project Malmo where Minecraft will be used as a tool to train artificial intelligence (AI) systems, as well as in machine learning and neural networks. With Project Malmo, they can do the testing in the same environment, sharing insights and combining their findings, especially since the project is open-source.
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With Project Malmo, researchers will be able to build AIs that learn, with the goal of helping them hold conversations, make decisions and complete complex tasks. The company hopes that the world of Minecraft a will be an effective testing ground for conducting research created to improve artificial intelligence. For example, Project Malmo uses overclocking, or the ability to carry out experiments faster than the usual pace of the game, to speed up the trial and error-based experiments that take up time and a lot of effort in the AI sphere.
PC Magazine explained that Minecraft represents an ideal environment for AI research, and it is a big training ground for Redmond’s Project Malmo platform.
Evelyne Viegas, director of AI outreach at Microsoft Research, said that will allow researchers to get results, and make adjustments, more quickly.
Not only for the AI, the collaborative nature of Minecraft also benefits researchers themselves, who often develop isolated systems to test their theories and algorithms.
With a system like Project Malmo, he said researchers can test their systems in the same Minecraft setting.
Leading on from these acquisitions, a team within Microsoft developed Project AIX to simulate a world where an AI can be tested out without posing a risk to humans.
The company hopes that by open-sourcing the platform, researchers will be able to collaborate and share findings to accelerate the research development process.
“You need to know how to program, but you don’t need to be an advanced programmer”, she said.
The platform includes a mod for the Java Version and code that helps the AI agent sense and act within the Minecraft ecosystem. The two components can run on Windows, Linux or Mac OS, and programmers can use any programming language they are comfortable with.
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Malmo’s project lead, Matthew Johnson, affirmed, “This is going to have an impact in education, at least at the university level”.
