Minecrafts CodeWriting AIs Points To The Future Of Computers

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Microsoft has recently demonstrated how artificial intelligence can be integrated into numerous software applications by writing code on-the-fly.



At the Microsoft Build developer conference today the chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, demonstrated an AI helper for the game Minecraft. The non-player character in the game is powered by the same machine learning technology Microsoft has been testing for auto-generating software code. Just another wordpress site This feat illustrates how AI advances could transform personal computing over the next few years by replacing interfaces that you tap, type and click to navigate into interfaces you have a conversation with.



The Minecraft agent responds appropriately to commands typed by turning them into code that runs behind the scenes using the API that is used by the software game. The AI model that runs the bot was developed using huge amounts of text and code in natural languages, then shown the API specifications for Minecraft and some examples of how to use it. The AI model that runs the base will automatically create the code to move the agent toward the player whenever a player tells it "come here." In the demonstration shown at Build the show, the bot was also able to perform more complex tasks, like retrieving items and combining them to make something new. The model was trained on natural language as well as code, it was able to respond to questions on how to construct things.



Although it's not known how well the system will function outside the demo the same techniques could be employed to make different applications respond to spoken or typed commands.



Microsoft has developed GitHub Copilot, an AI programming tool based on the same technology. It automatically suggests code when a developer begins typing, or when responding to comments that are added to a code. Scott says that Copilot is the first of many "AI-first products" from Microsoft and other companies in the future. He says code-writing AI "allows users to think differently about software development, so that you can express your intention for what you would like to accomplish."



Scott does not give specific examples, but this could be the case in the future. For instance, an upcoming version of Windows that can locate a specific document and then emails it to a colleague when you ask it to or an AI-infused version of Excel that turns a dataset into charts when you request. "We're going to witness lots and lots of big productivity gains for all kinds of routine cognitive work that no one particularly likes," Scott says.



In recent years, AI has proven adept in a variety of tasks, including classification of images, transcribing audio, and even translating text. New AI programs can produce coherent text-like computer code thanks to recent algorithmic advancements and massive amounts of computing power.



The Minecraft bot was developed using an AI model called Codex which was created by OpenAI, an AI company which received funding from Microsoft in the year 2019. Codex was trained using natural language text that was scraped from the internet, as well as billions of lines of code from GitHub which is a popular repository of software owned by Microsoft.



Microsoft's Copilot was made available to a small number of users in June 2021. The program is now being used by over 10,000 developers who are producing on average around 35 percent of their code in popular languages like Python and Java using Copilot, Microsoft says. Microsoft plans to make Copilot accessible to anyone to download this summer. To create a similar bot to the Minecraft bot, developers will require the underlying AI model, Codex.



Developers are worried about Codex and Copilot, as they fear that their jobs will be automated. The Minecraft demo could inspire similar concerns. However, Scott says the feedback for Copilot has been largely positive, suggesting that it simply automates more tedious coding tasks. "If you speak to a developer who uses a Copilot, they'll say 'this is a fantastic tool that it's amazing,'" he says.