Microsoft is using MINECRAFT to teach AI computers but it's not easy

Getting to grips with a new computer game usually involves some trial and error. Now researchers are using Minecraft as a tool to test the abilities of artificially intelligent avatars – but the game, loved by youngsters around the world, is proving to be rather a challenge for the machines. Currently, five computer scientists have been trying to get their AI Minecraft character to climb a hill. While on the face of it, this might not seem like a Herculean task, the character has to learn how to perform tasks - such as climbing to a highpoint in the pixelated virtual world, itself - using the same types of resources a human has when we learn a new task. 'That means that the agent [character] starts out knowing nothing at all about its environment or even what it is supposed to accomplish,' wrote Microsoft's Allison Linn in a blog post.