As if Minecraft wasn't already popular enough, it's now being used to help artificial intelligence. At least, that's what a modified version of the game by Microsoft does. Katja Hofmann and her team of colleagues at Microsoft have created a platform called AIX, which is a mod of Minecraft. The company hopes that this system will help artificial intelligence agents better understand general intelligence.
THE MINECRAFT MOD
For those of you who don't know, artificial intelligence is developing rapidly and has improved by leaps and bounds over the years. However, as researchers from around the world have mentioned, artificial intelligence still needs to work on general intelligence. You can think of this type of intelligence as the complex way humans learn and the way we, as people, make decisions.
Well, now, with this Minecraft mod, Microsoft hopes to improve that. The great thing is that it's very flexible, because researchers can use any programming language they want and choose to run it on Mac, Linux, or Windows.
MICROSOFT'S KATJA HOFMANN COMMENTS ON THE SYSTEM
As mentioned earlier, Katja Hofmann and her colleagues developed this system. Well, she decided to speak about why she thinks Minecraft would be a perfect choice to help artificial intelligence. Due to the fact that the world of Minecraft is very open, she says, it is a perfect platform for their research. She goes on to mention how in the game you can do classes, survival mode, implement your own games, and more.
What's really exciting, she continues, is that this will allow them to create games that will go beyond the current capabilities of artificial intelligence. Microsoft is to be commended for this initiative, as this type of technology must continue to improve.