PHOENIX — Arizona State students are using the popular video game Minecraft to help artificial intelligence learn to be more socially intelligent.
Minecraft is a simple video game where you can build your own world and play with other people. They started this research in 2019 using AI developed by M.I.T. And Carnegie Mellon University.
“Minecraft serves as an environment that we can practice teamwork skills in, and the AI can observe those skills or do the teamwork itself,” ASU Professor of Human Systems Engineering Nancy Cooke said.
More than 1500 games were played where three students and one AI avatar would simulate search and rescue missions to try to help the AI learn how to make the team better by either giving advice or how to work better with the team.
“It was pretty darn successful cause we not only generated data that’s publicly accessible but also we also generated one of the largest data sets that’s available to the public on how people interact with each other in Minecraft,” ASU Ph.D. student of Human Systems Engineering Myke Cohen said. “We wanted a game where people can naturally team up, accomplish some goals that we set for them in a game, and do so way that's easily observable for us and for the AI systems that we were developing.”
Cooke said that currently, AI is as smart as a dog. However, the goal of this research was not to make AI more like humans but to help it be a tool or a better team player for people.
“We gave AI other tasks that it can do well,” Cooke said. “Together the human and the AI could have like superhuman capabilities.”
The project ended in 2023, but these ASU students are working with other video games and projects to help AI progress on being more social.
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