Scientists have gathered to create artificial intelligence in Minecraft. Experiments with artificial intelligence in Minecraft And that's all

The fact that Microsoft is using Minecraft as a testing ground for testing and training its own artificial intelligence system. Now this project has entered the public domain and everyone can try it at work.

The developers say that the AI ​​systems currently used are used to understand or translate human speech, recognize faces and create their own text. However, the ultimate goal of developing such systems is the creation of “complex artificial intelligence” - a system capable of learning and making decisions based on its own experience.

And from this point of view, Minecraft turned out to be an ideal field: an almost endless world in which there are both dangers and enormous opportunities for creation. Why shouldn’t a simplified model of the world become the area in which artificial intelligence will live and learn?

The project is called Malmo (the name most likely comes from the name of a large Swedish city, because Minecraft itself also comes from Sweden) and you can already download it and try to use it. True, in order to install an artificial intelligence system for Minecraft, you will have to strain your own a little.

How to install Malmo

How to use Malmo

Now is the time to try the system in action. Since the kit comes with scripts for Malmo in several programming languages, you can use them. I will refer to the module in Java, but I think the essence will be the same.

So, first of all, you need to launch Malmo (that is, run launchClient.bat). Well, then run the JavaExamples_run_mission module.

This is done with the command (I created a small bat file):

java -cp MalmoJavaJar.jar;JavaExamples_run_mission.jar -Djava.library.path=. JavaExamples_run_mission

However, at the same time I had problems with the fact that the MalmoJava.dll library, located right there in the folder with the example, turned out to be “invisible” to Java. As a result, I copied it to some directory that is listed in the PATH variable and everything started fine.

It looked like this: suddenly the Minecraft window decreased in size, some kind of world opened, and some kind of character movement began to occur in it. At the same time, messages were written to the console, and after some time everything froze.

You can actually view it here:

And that's all?!

Well, actually at this stage, that’s really all. Those. Included with Malmo there is no ready-made artificial intelligence that would make decisions for you, build cities, fish and hunt bears (especially since Malmo lags behind regular Minecraft and runs on version 1.8, not 1.10).

The most important thing, as I understand it, is a tool that will allow developers to create a system that will “see Minecraft” like a person. Those. to interact with the world of Minecraft through Malmo, you will need to rely on actions like “look at your feet, if there is something like lava there, don’t go there,” and not access the blocks directly using their coordinates. Having sent a command to the chat, you will need to analyze the text written in response, etc. Well, and most importantly, you can do all this using the development environment to which you are accustomed.

Of course, I could be wrong - I haven’t looked at the documentation yet and haven’t tried to write my own script for Malmo. But I will definitely try to do this and then I will tell you in more detail.

What about Malmo for Minecraft Pocket Edition?

After I downloaded Malmo, what surprised me most was that it is based on Minecraft for PC. The development of the MCPE line has a higher development priority and I now believe more in the sooner appearance of official programming tools in MCPE than in the appearance of the PluginAPI for regular Minecraft promised many years ago.

In improving software for learning systems and artificial intelligence, creating your own virtual Minecraft landscapes.

According to Microsoft Research researchers working on the Malmo project, Minecraft has more "sophisticated" capabilities compared to AI emulators, and the cost of adapting the game for use in the experiment is less than other similar developments.

One of the experts emphasizes that the game has huge potential. “This is an extremely cutting-edge solution,” says Professor José Hernández-Orallo of the Technical University of Valencia, one of the small teams of researchers who were the first to gain access to the experimental software. – There is nothing like this anymore. Considering that this is just the beginning, the system has great prospects.”

To take part in the experiment, users must install AIX, a software platform that interacts with Minecraft that allows AI code to control the character and evaluate the results of his actions. AIX is open source, so the cost to participate is just the price of a standard game license.

The experiment will be carried out on researchers’ computers, “fenced off” from other players. In this case, experimenters will be able to change the program code.

“People are creating unprecedented designs with amazing capabilities in Minecraft, which will allow experimenters to increase the potential of AI modules,” explains Katja Hofmann, Malmo project leader at the MSR lab in Cambridge. “And over time, we will be able to go even further and add tasks that allow AI agents to learn to help people, expanding their creativity. This will allow us to achieve our goal in the coming decades: to take AI from its current level to a level close to human intelligence.”

With my own eyes

Programs with AI elements have been teaching how to play video games a long time ago. But in this case, Microsoft is seeking to use Minecraft's openness feature. It will give the AI ​​the opportunity to “see” what is happening in the game from a first-person perspective.

"This allows us to implement 'personalized AI,'" says Matthew Johnson, lead programmer on the AIX project. – In other words, in our case, the AI ​​does not observe its avatar from the outside, but, as it were, is inside and sees what is happening through the eyes of one of the entities living in the game world. We believe this is an important step towards modeling general intelligence."

The researchers suggest that one of the main directions of their work will be learning by trial and error, in which the AI ​​agent does not simply follow instructions, but learns to find optimal solutions to problems, based on previous experience and expanding it as it interacts with the environment.

This approach is used by AlphaGo, which recently beat one of the world's top Go players after running thousands of competitions with itself to learn new strategies.

Microsoft believes that Minecraft provides greater opportunities for AI development compared to learning a specific game.

“Experimenters must use game elements such as lava, which pose a particular danger to the player agent, and evaluate the pace at which he learns to recognize objects in the environment,” Katja Hofmann told the BBC. “But the platform is also open to more general AI research, for example, adding language and visual functions to agents. We see our work as the first step in the development of technology that will be used to build robots, and now we have the opportunity to test it in a safe, fully controlled environment, at minimal cost."

AI Basics

MSR emphasizes that while the AIX platform is aimed at AI professionals, it will also allow children to create simple programs, and over time a variety of educational materials will be released on AIX.

“We want to involve people of different ages with different mentalities,” says Johnson. And Professor José Hernández-Orallo explains the idea: “Children will create agents in their favorite worlds and play with them. This will increase interest in artificial intelligence, and we expect more people to work in this field over the next 10-20 years

Company Microsoft announced its plans to use the universe as a platform for developing and testing artificial intelligence systems. According to the site, the new platform created by scientists will become available to everyone in the summer.

A group of specialists from the Microsoft Research Laboratory in Cambridge developed a system called AIX. The team of scientists is convinced that the limitless possibilities of Minecraft can become an ideal “digital testing ground” for testing artificial intelligence.

For example, scientists tried to create an AI that could learn how to navigate and climb to the highest point in the virtual world using the same reasoning as a person.

« The subject of research appears in a world about which he knows absolutely nothing. He must independently understand what surrounds him and understand when he rises to the top. Of course, during the journey there will be mistakes, such as falling into rivers and pits. The most important thing is that the object must understand its goal and when it will achieve it", the researchers explain.

Of course, the above example is just one of many. Scientists hope to combine existing advances in artificial intelligence to create a complex system that can be tested in a rich virtual world.

As the site has learned, the creators of AIX are already offering their product to the scientific community around the world. The developers plan to begin large-scale distribution of the system under an open source license this summer. The software will be available for Windows, Linux or OS X.