That's what Microsoft's Project Malmo, formerly known as Project AIX, is doing right now. Publicly unveiled today on the official Mojang blog, Project Malmo has just made its open source tools available to everyone today in an effort to help others help strengthen AI in various ways. Mojang notes that Minecraft is the perfect way to educate AI when it comes to offering solutions to problems, sharpening spatial and temporal reasoning, and even collaboration. Project Malmo can offer diverse opportunities at teaching artificial intelligence software and act as a research tool that can test these theories as well. If you're interested in seeing what Project Malmo has to offer in addition to testing it out for yourself, you can download the mod for the PC/Mac edition of Minecraft here.

Microsoft has published the source code for its Project Malmo, allowing anyone to conduct artificial intelligence experiments in the world of Minecraft with a little programming. It unveiled the project, then known as AIX, back in March, but at the time only a few academics had access to the code. On Thursday the company made good on its promise to open up the source code by publishing it on Github. Minecraft, the blocky world-building game that Microsoft paid US 2.5 billion for two years ago, is an ideal place to test how artificial intelligences will interact with one another and with humans. As it's a simulation, Minecraft is a safe place to test how AIs learn to perform certain kinds of physical tasks: In Minecraft, a rogue machine or runaway car can hurt no one.

Finally, you can set your artificial intelligence creations free in Minecraft. Microsoft has announced a public release for Project Malmo, the company's system for testing AI software in Minecraft -- and for the first time, anyone can join in. Microsoft first made the system available to researchers in March under the name AIX, but this release marks the first time the code has been freely available to the public. The code is all available under an open-source license on Github, including a full tutorial on how to deploy your script on the platform, which is embedded below. The result isn't that different from typical AI test, in which code is deployed and observed in a test environment.

The devastating neurodegenerative condition Alzheimer's disease is incurable, but with early detection, patients can seek treatments to slow the disease's progression, before some major symptoms appear. Now, by applying artificial intelligence algorithms to MRI brain scans, researchers have developed a way to automatically distinguish between patients with Alzheimer's and two early forms of dementia that can be precursors to the memory-robbing disease. The researchers, from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, suggest the approach could eventually allow automated screening and assisted diagnosis of various forms of dementia, particularly in centers that lack experienced neuroradiologists. Additionally, the results, published online July 6 in the journal Radiology, show that the new system was able to classify the form of dementia that patients were suffering from, using previously unseen scans, with up to 90 percent accuracy. "The potential is the possibility of screening with these techniques so people at risk can be intercepted before the disease becomes apparent," said Alle Meije Wink, a senior investigator in the center's radiology and nuclear medicine department. "I think very few patients at the moment will trust an outcome predicted by a machine," Wink told Live Science.

Hell, Microsoft issued an Education Edition of the popular PC game earlier this year, s targeted at use in a classroom setting. Turns out the game could also prove a useful tool for helping artificial intelligence be more, well, intelligent. Back in March, Microsoft Research showcased the work it was doing with Project Malmo, a platform designed to leverage Minecraft as a means of helping improve AI problem solving, using machines to accomplish tasks and create items in the blocky game. Now the company is bringing Malmo to the GitHub-using masses, courtesy of an open-source license in a private preview. Katja Hoffman of MS's Cambridge, UK lab highlighted the key of teaching AI fundamental connections that go build simple pattern recognition.

Stephon Alexander is a theoretical physicist and jazz musician.

The UK and the rest of Europe may be parting ways, but at least the Brits can drown their sorrows in a rather unique way. A new company based in London is now selling beer designed by a machine learning algorithm. The company, IntelligentX, is promoting their new offering as "the world's first beer brewed by AI." According to the company's website, they've developed a "complex machine learning algorithm" that uses customer feedback to match flavor preferences to brewing techniques. There are four different styles of beers to sample and evaluate.

In a disappointing defeat against France, the human German soccer team was knocked out of the European Championship July 7. But at least the nation can take heart that its robots proved victorious in the annual RoboCup robot soccer tournament that took place this past weekend in Leipzig, Germany. The winning team, from the University of Bremen, called "B-Human," beat out the University of Texas, Austin's team--the wonderfully named "Austin Villa"--on penalties after a goalless draw in the final of the tournament, according to The Telegraph. Robot teams play two 10-minute halves on a 9-by-6-meter pitch, autonomously roving about the field trying to pass the ball to teammates and score goals. But unlike the cool efficiency that the German human soccer team is known for, the robots are a bit more ramshackle in their approach to the sport.

Google DeepMind has appointed Ben Laurie as its new head of security. Laurie announced on his Twitter page on Thursday he has joined the artificial intelligence research company -- bought by Google for a reported 400 million in 2014 -- as head of security and transparency. Laurie is the founding director of the Apache Software Foundation, a director at the Open Rights Group, and a veteran Google software engineer. He describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as an: "Extremely proficient programmer (over 30 years experience) and system designer. Security, cryptography, privacy and civil liberties are my passions." The Cambridge University graduate wrote on Twitter that he is "excited" and "proud" to be taking on the new role.

"Make an appointment for 4pm today with Gary," I say to my assistant as I hang up from a promising phone call with a potential client. There was a time when you had to be high up in an organisation to have an assistant. My assistant is an artificially intelligent piece of software that lives in my smart phone. It makes me wonder if technologies like these could help a business grow. A report called The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to automation was published in 2013 by researchers from Oxford University. It was used last year by the BBC to create the interactive web page, Will a robot take your job?.