Microsoft is reportedly working on an artificial intelligence system that can allow you to play Minecraft simply by telling the game what to do.
This technology allows you to give natural language commands to Minecraft, according to a report from Semafor (opens in a new tab). So you can tell the game to build a fort, give some examples of the features you want to see, and see how the game progresses and builds it. These commands use a natural language interpretation, similar to ChatGPT. This AI model would be built in partnership with OpenAI, much like the Prometheus model currently used at Bing, although there is no direct link between the two projects.
This is only an internal demo at Microsoft and there are no immediate plans to implement it in the versions of Minecraft you and I play, according to the report.
Minecraft has been used for some time in AI training experiments. Last year, OpenAI publicly explained how it trained an AI model to play Minecraft by having it watch 70,000 hours of YouTube videos about the game. At the time of this blog post in June 2022, the AI could already quickly gather the materials needed for a diamond pickaxe from scratch in a new world.
Whether or not this Minecraft AI finds its way to regular gamers, the implementation of AI technology in video games seems inevitable. A Chinese MMO has already added natural language interpretation of ChatGPT to allow it to have more responsive conversations with NPCs, and even break up their marriages.
Minecraft gets a new biome in your next big update, but more importantly, you’ll get rosewood.