Microsoft have unveiled a platform which allows research to be conducted within the world of Minecraft to improve artificial intelligence. It is named Project AIX, and is created by researchers Katja Hoffman and Matthew Johnson in the Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge.
So why Minecraft of all things? Well, whether or not you think the game is fun, it’s a good world to test AI in: since the world is infinite. A team of computer scientists are attempting to get an AI controlled Minecraft character to climb a hill.
However, climbing the hill won’t be easy, since the Ai also needs to learn how to climb the hill, without knowing at the start what it needs to accomplish. The AI will need to learn about its surroundings through trail and error in order to achieve its goal.
Using Minecraft is also a lot less frustrating and costly than building real robots and facing them with the same tasks, since that robot would need to be repaired and replaced if it failed.
This summer, AIX will be available to all through an open source license.
