Improving the world of AI with...Minecraft
While artificial intelligences have been used for a long time, they have recently made huge leaps towards becoming more "human-like." If you aren't familiar with what an AI (artificial intelligence) is, it is anything where a computer is trying to be "intelligent" by imitating human behavior. You might be familiar with having the computer as your opponent in computer board games or as extra players in video games, these are all AIs. In 1997, AIs made their first big victory whenDeep Blue was able to beat the chess champion. Recently Google just made an AI that was able to beat the current human GO champion at the board game Go. Our own computer science department builds a game which includes an AI for their senior capstone. If all this interests you their showcase is April 28th from 7-8:30 in the Rhodes. Plus AIs aren't only used in the field of game making, but are also used in attempts to find trends in cancer research, as the minds for robotic "pets", and in attempts at personal helper systems similar to the one in Iron Man.
Now that you know a little bit about AIs...back to Minecraft. Minecraft is a very different game from Chess or Go. Instead of distinct moves and turns, Minecraft requires a "general intelligence" to beat the game. Microsoft wants to have the next big success in AI by imitating this general intelligence. Their new AIX platform is what the AI will run on and for now it will try things sectioned off from other players. It will try different actions and paths until it builds up enough prior knowledge that it can use its experience to succeed. For now AIX has been released to a very select group of people, but soon it will be used by both trained professionals and little kids. Users will be able to build different levels that the AI will have to learn to interact in. It will be open source, so the users can see what the AI is doing behind the scenes to make the decisions it is making. For now that will be the extent, but once Microsoft has been able to polish up the AI, it may be released as a kind of sidekick that the player can use.
Now that you know a little bit about AIs...back to Minecraft. Minecraft is a very different game from Chess or Go. Instead of distinct moves and turns, Minecraft requires a "general intelligence" to beat the game. Microsoft wants to have the next big success in AI by imitating this general intelligence. Their new AIX platform is what the AI will run on and for now it will try things sectioned off from other players. It will try different actions and paths until it builds up enough prior knowledge that it can use its experience to succeed. For now AIX has been released to a very select group of people, but soon it will be used by both trained professionals and little kids. Users will be able to build different levels that the AI will have to learn to interact in. It will be open source, so the users can see what the AI is doing behind the scenes to make the decisions it is making. For now that will be the extent, but once Microsoft has been able to polish up the AI, it may be released as a kind of sidekick that the player can use.
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