Minecraft's Code-Writing AI Indicates The Future Of Computers

Microsoft just showed how artificial intelligence could make its way into a variety of software applications-by writing code on the in the air.

At the Microsoft Build developer conference today the chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, demonstrated an AI helper for the game Minecraft. The game's non-player character is powered by the same machine-learning technology Microsoft has been testing to generate software code. This feat shows how AI advances could transform personal computing in the next few years, replacing interfaces you tap, type and click to access interfaces you can talk to.

The Minecraft agent responds appropriately to typed commands by converting them into code that runs behind the scenes using the API of the software game. The AI model that is in charge of the bot was trained using vast amounts of text and code in natural languages Then, it was shown the API specifications for Minecraft as well as some examples of how to use it. The underlying AI model will automatically generate the code needed to direct the agent towards the player whenever a player tells it "come here." The bot was able perform more complicated tasks in the Build demo, like retrieving items and combining them into new things. The model was trained using both natural language and code, which means it can answer basic questions about how to construct things.

Although it's not known how well the system could function in other situations similar techniques could be employed to make other applications respond to spoken or typed commands.

Microsoft has created GitHub Copilot, an AI coding tool built on the same technology. It automatically suggests code when a programmer begins writing or responds to comments to an article. Scott states that Copilot is the first of many "AI-first products" from Microsoft and other companies in the future. He says code-writing AI "allows you to think in a different way about software development, so that you can clearly define your goals for what you would like to achieve."

Scott does not give specific examples, but this could be the case in the future. For instance, an upcoming version of Windows that locates a particular document and sends it to a coworker when you ask it to, or an AI-imbued version of Excel that turns a dataset into a chart when you are asked. "We're going to see lots and lots and lots of big productivity gains for all sorts of cognitive tasks that nobody particularly enjoys," Scott says.

AI has been able to perform tasks such as translating text, transcribing audio and classifying images. New AI programs are capable of producing coherent text-like computer code, thanks to recent algorithmic advancements and huge amounts of computing power.
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The Minecraft bot was developed using an AI model called Codex that was developed by OpenAI which is an AI company that received funding from Microsoft in the year 2019. Codex was trained with natural language text from the internet and billions of lines of code from GitHub which is a well-known software repository which is owned by Microsoft.

Microsoft's Copilot was initially made available to a limited number of users in June 2021. It is now being utilized daily by more than 10,000 developers, who create, on average 35 percent, their code in popular languages like Python and Java using Copilot. The company plans to make Copilot free for everyone to download this summer. To create a similar bot to the Minecraft bot, developers would need to work with the core AI model, Codex.

Both Codex and Copilot have sparked anxieties among developers who worry that they will be removed from their jobs. The Minecraft demo could inspire similar fears. Scott says that Copilot's feedback has been mostly positive. This suggests that Copilot simply automates more complex programming tasks. He says that if you speak to anyone who is a Copilot user they will tell you, "This is such a great tool."