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

Microsoft has just demonstrated how artificial intelligence can be integrated into a variety of software applications by writing code on the fly.



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



The Minecraft agent responds appropriately to typed commands by converting the commands into functional code behind the scenes by using the software API for the game. The AI model that controls the bot was trained using huge amounts of text and code in natural languages Then, it was shown the API specifications for Minecraft and some usage examples. The AI model that runs the base will automatically generate the code required to direct the agent towards the player when a player says "come here." In the demo shown at Build the show, the bot was also able perform more complex tasks, like retrieving items and combining them to create something completely new. The model was trained on natural language as well as code, it was able to answer simple questions about how to construct things.



While it's unclear how reliably the system will function in other situations, similar tricks 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 developer begins typing, or when responding to the comments made to a code. Scott says Copilot is the first example of what could be a slew of "AI-first" products in the near future, from Microsoft and other companies. Code-writing AI "lets you think about software development in a different way, so you can express an intention to accomplish something you'd like to accomplish," he says.



Scott does not provide specific examples, but this could eventually lead to a version of Windows that locates a particular document and sends it to a colleague when you ask for it, or an AI-imbued version of Excel that transforms a data set into charts when you are asked. Scott states that there will be many productivity wins for the everyday cognitive work that no one enjoys.



In recent years, AI has proven adept in a variety of tasks, including classification of images, transcribing audio, and even translating text. The latest AI programs can produce coherent text, similar to computer code, thanks to recent advances in algorithmic technology and massive amounts of computer power.



The Minecraft bot was built using an AI model known as Codex that was developed by OpenAI the AI company which received funding from Microsoft in the year 2019. Codex was trained on natural language texts gathered from the web, as well as billions of lines of code from GitHub, a popular repository of software owned by Microsoft.



Microsoft's Copilot was initially made available to a small number of users in June 2021. BLOGGING is now being utilized daily by more than 10,000 developers who produce at least 35 percent, their code in popular languages such as Python and Java using Copilot. Microsoft plans to make Copilot available to everyone to download in the summer of 2021. To build something like the Minecraft bot, developers will have to work with the underlying AI model, Codex.



Both Codex and Copilot have created a bit of anxiety among developers, who fear they could be eliminated from a job. The Minecraft demo could inspire similar concerns. 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 someone who is a Copilot user they will tell you, "This is such a amazing tool."


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