Microsoft is using Minecraft to explore new ways for people to collaborate with AI Robotics/machine learning

The blockish and slightly dorky computer game Minecraft may turn out to be a great place for humans and AI to learn how to work together. An experimental new version of the game, released by Microsoft researchers this month, can be used to train an AI to perform all sorts of tasks, from crossing bridges to building complex objects. The new platform, called Project Malmo, makes it possible for a learning algorithm to control a Minecraft character that's normally operated by a human player. But it also provides ways for human players and AI agents to work together, and a chat window through which a person can talk with a nascent AI. "In the long run I want to work toward AI that can be taught by any user to help them achieve their goals," says Katja Hofmann, a researcher at Microsoft Cambridge in the U.K. who leads the project. Hofmann, who gave a demo of the software to AI researchers at an academic conference in New York last week, says that human-AI collaboration is a key goal for the project: "We've built in all the capabilities that a researcher would need in order to work toward collaborative AI." Malmo is geared toward testing reinforcement-learning algorithms, a way of training a computer to perform a task by providing simulated rewards.