Block by Block: How AI-Generated Minecraft Worlds Are Building the Future of Real-Time Video

Playing the AI version of Minecraft, a popular video game created by artificial intelligence (AI) companies Descart and Etched, is a little awkward. Of course, just like in the original game where you freely build the game world using blocks, in this AI-created demo game you can walk forward, cut down trees and stack earth blocks. However, at some point, the blocks of earth stacked a short time ago could transform into a completely new environment. This is something that never happens in the current version of “Minecraft”. Additionally, since this new version of the game was created solely by AI without coding, it is prone to hallucinations.

Descartes and Etched created this demo version as a “proof of concept” to test the new technology before bringing it to market. Both companies believe the technology could be used more widely for real-time video or video game creation. In early October, Descartes co-founder and CEO Dean Leitersdorf said: “The screen you’re looking at can be transformed into a portal to a new world, a world of imagination that can be reconstructed on the fly without coding. “That’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”