ASU Students Use Minecraft to Teach AI Teamwork
ASU Students Train AI to Be a Team Player Using minecraft
Phoenix, AZ – Arizona State University students are harnessing the power of the popular video game Minecraft to teach artificial intelligence (AI) the nuances of teamwork and social interaction.
Since 2019, researchers have been using Minecraft as a virtual training ground for AI, leveraging its collaborative gameplay to develop more socially clever machines.
“Minecraft serves as an environment where we can practice teamwork skills, and the AI can observe those skills or even participate in the teamwork itself,” explained ASU Professor of Human Systems Engineering nancy Cooke.
The project involved over 1,500 simulated search and rescue missions within Minecraft. Teams of three students and one AI avatar worked together, allowing the AI to learn from human behavior and adapt its strategies.
“It was pretty darn successful because we not only generated data that’s publicly accessible but also one of the largest datasets available on how people interact with each othre in Minecraft,” said ASU Ph.D. student Myke Cohen. “We wanted a game where people can naturally team up, accomplish goals, and do so in a way that’s easily observable for us and for the AI systems we were developing.”
While current AI capabilities are frequently enough compared to those of a dog, the goal of this research wasn’t to make AI more human-like. Instead, the focus was on enhancing AI’s ability to function as a valuable team member, augmenting human capabilities.
“We gave AI other tasks that it can do well,” Cooke said. “Together, the human and the AI coudl have like superhuman capabilities.”
The Minecraft project concluded in 2023, but the ASU team continues to explore new video games and platforms to further advance AI’s social intelligence.
Minecraft: Training Ground for a Team-Oriented AI
For years, Arizona State University (ASU) researchers have been leveraging the popular video game Minecraft to teach AI the complex art of teamwork. Led by Professor Nancy Cooke, the project immersed AI avatars alongside human student teams in over 1,500 simulated search and rescue missions within the game’s virtual world.
“Minecraft serves as an surroundings where we can practice teamwork skills,” Professor Cooke explains, ”and the AI can observe those skills or even participate in the teamwork itself.”
This virtual training ground allowed the AI to learn from human behavior and adapt its strategies.
“We wanted a game where people can naturally team up, accomplish goals, and do so in a way that’s easily observable for us and for the AI systems we were developing,” said Myke Cohen, an ASU PhD student working on the project.
While AI capabilities are often compared to those of a dog, Cohen clarifies that mimicking human behavior wasn’t the primary goal. Instead, the research aimed to equip AI with the skills necessary to function as a valuable team member, augmenting human capabilities.
“We gave AI other tasks that it can do well,” Professor Cooke said.”Together, the human and the AI could have like superhuman capabilities.”
Though the Minecraft project concluded in 2023, the ASU team remains dedicated to exploring new avenues for developing AI’s social intelligence, venturing into other video games and platforms.