Microsoft’s AI ambitions are coming for your Minecraft obsession
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It looks like Microsoft is dipping its toes into other areas with its AI technology, particularly the gaming kind if a new report is to be believed.
This is reported by an anonymous source Semaphore (opens in new tab) and reported by Newwin (opens in new tab), Microsoft may be planning to develop a new AI model tasked with enabling gamers to control their characters and tasks using natural language. This feature was reportedly demonstrated at an internal Microsoft meeting.
Apparently, this task was more difficult than initially planned, as some sandbox tasks can be performed in multiple ways, and the AI model itself could even develop alternative methods for completing tasks in the game.
The Semafor article does state that Microsoft has no plans to add this AI control to public builds of Minecraft, although AI researchers have been using the game to test out their technology, including OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
The possible pitfalls of AI in Minecraft
While this report stated that Microsoft would not use its AI technology in a public version of Minecraft, the idea of this kind of AI demo is also not unique when this video is later posted on Twitter by Walking Cat is accurate.
It certainly has some great features, allowing players to instantly build beautiful structures and control their characters with ease, which is an excellent accessibility option. But as that video points out, coding issues can arise that can only be solved by those with debugging experience.
There’s plenty of room for misbehavior too, as players can instantly summon inappropriate symbols, textures or worse, and an AI can be trained to harass other players as well. Hopefully, Microsoft will continue to keep its research behind closed doors until these kinks are worked out.