Notes

Design and Build your next home In Minecraft Luis Quintanilla

By using Minecraft and Mods, virtual representations of the real world can be built to train autonomous agents to navigate and complete tasks within this virtual environment. These virtual models can be used by physical agents such as Boston Dynamics bots, to execute the instructions and tasks learned from the virtual models. In the end, it is reasonable to think of a time where we can build our house and have it constructed in a short period by autonomous artificial agents.



It's hard to describe Minecraft in a way that is easy to describe. Is it a game? Or an educational tool? At first I didn't get it. I watched my children play this game over and over again, always finding ways to improve their worlds. It was eventually purchased by Microsoft and since then it has left the core experience almost unaffected. Microsoft has not thrown it out however, instead it has extended its reach across a variety of platforms and loaded it with new features, like an educational edition and cross-platform play. Redstone can be used to construct Minecraft cities, houses and even basic circuit models. Mods, which are modifications to the default model, can be built by individuals.



Dynamic Mapping



A virtual world is great but what do we know about the real world? Can we model the real-world? A few months back I was able to discover a project from the New York Public Library that produced topographically accurate Minecraft maps from old maps and Python scripts. While maps from the past aren't always accurate, we can only hope that modern mapping practices provide more data and details. This project shows that it is possible to model the real world in virtual space with relevant data.



Project Malmo



Aside from having the obvious advantage of having a fairly precise virtual representation of the real world, there's also the additional benefit of having a base point to train autonomous agents to navigate this environment. Project Malmo is an excellent tool to assist in this process. Project Malmo, a platform for artificial Intelligence research and experimentation that was built on Minecraft, was released to the public by Microsoft Research in 2015. The project is cross-platform and agents can be created in Python, Lua or C#.



Although the benefits of Project Malmo are not obvious, they are extremely useful. The cost not only in terms of cost but also the time required to construct physical autonomous bots is high. It can be expensive if they break down or malfunction during field testing. Thus, a better option might be to simulate the navigation and mobility of these autonomous physical agents in a realistic situation using virtual environments.



Manual Labor



Once we've been trained, we need to find or build the physical agents that can carry out the work and instructions based upon the training conducted in virtual environments. Recent tests have shown that agents may be competent to handle such tasks. Boston Dynamics is one of these agents. BEAGO Boston Dynamics has been creating amazing anthropomorphic and zoomorphic robotics for quite a while. These robots can construct homes if they've been trained in real-world environments.



It is possible to imagine a bot creating your home. On March of 2017 several reports claimed that a house in Russia was built in less than 24 hours using 3-D printing technology. While the house was designed in advance and the robot arm that built it was not mobile but its capabilities could be extended through a trained model executed using advanced physical autonomous agents like those manufactured by Boston Dynamics.


Website: https://beago.xyz/