Creating a popular video game takes thousands of hours of coding, testing, and playing before it is ever ready to play by regular users. In the future, however, that may not be the case.
In fact, that future may be closer than you think. You can play a fun game that is similar to Minecraft, which was made using artificial intelligence rather than human planning and coding.
In order to create the game, the AI system ‘watched’ millions of hours of footage from the popular Minecraft game. It was then told to create a new game based on what it learned.
The result is a new game called Oasis, which allows players to go through a world that seems a lot like Minecraft at first. Every frame of the game, however, is generated by the AI engine.
As you walk through the game, it adjusts based on your actions. Sometimes those adjustments are expected and make sense. Other times they are surprising or even creepy.
The team who made this game put out a statement on it, in which they said:
“The model learned to allow users to move around, jump, pick up items, break blocks, and more, all by watching gameplay directly. We view Oasis as the first step in our research towards foundational models that simulate more complex interactive worlds, thereby replacing the classic game engine for a future driven by AI.”
While this is certainly an amazing advancement in AI technology that may have a dramatic impact on games of the future, it really isn’t ready for wide scale use.
There are lots of unexpected things that pop up while playing. For example, the game will analyze what type of thing you are doing at a given moment and then try to match what you have in your inventory to what people in a similar situation would typically have. This could mean you gain some items, or items that you have disappeared.
In addition, the environment around you changes based on what the AI expects rather than what is really there. This can make playing it a little disorienting.
If you are interested in giving this game a try, you can play it for free here. You can see some examples of this in the following video, which shows the game being played:
I’m not sure how long I could play this game.
If you found that story interesting, learn more about why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.
