Notes

Design and Build your next home In Minecraft - Luis Quintanilla

Utilizing Minecraft and Mods, virtual representations of the real world can be built to enable autonomous agents to navigate and perform tasks within this virtual environment. These virtual models can then be used by physical agents, such as Boston Dynamics bots to implement the tasks and instructions learned from the virtual models. This lets us imagine the possibility of being able to design and construct our house in a very small amount of time by using autonomous artificial agents.
Minecraft


It's difficult to define Minecraft. Is it a game , or is it an educational tool? At first I didn't get it. I watched younger siblings play this game endlessly constantly seeking ways to improve their lives. It was eventually purchased by Microsoft and since then has remained relatively untouched. Microsoft has not thrown it out and instead has expanded its reach across multiple platforms and loaded it with a myriad of new features like an education edition and cross platform play. Redstone is used to construct Minecraft houses, cities and even basic circuit models. Mods are modifications to the default model, can be constructed by anyone.



Dynamic Mapping



It's great to create an imaginary world but what happens when you actually live in? Can we simulate the real world? A few months ago I discovered a project from the New York Public Library which produced topographically accurate Minecraft maps using old map scans and Python scripts. While the accuracy of the old maps isn't certain however, we can only believe that mapping practices have evolved significantly since then and can provide more details and data. This project proves that it is possible to model real world conditions in a virtual environment with the appropriate data.



Project Malmo



In addition to the obvious benefits of a model that is accurate, it also serves as a an opportunity to teach autonomous agents how to navigate the environment. To aid in this endeavor, Project Malmo is an adequate tool. Project Malmo is a platform for artificial Intelligence research and experimentation that was built on Minecraft, was released to the general public by Microsoft Research in 2015. It is cross-platform and agents can be created using Python, Lua or C#.



While the advantages of Project Malmo aside from the pedagogical exercise may not be clearly evident, this project is extremely beneficial. It can be expensive not only in terms time and cost but also in the expense of building physical autonomous bots. If for some reason they were to break or fail during field tests, it could cost a lot. Therefore , a better solution is to simulate the navigation and mobility of these physical autonomous agents in a real world situation using virtual environments.



Manual Labor



After we have been trained, we need to identify or develop the physical agents that can execute the work and instructions based on the training that was conducted in the virtual environments. Recent demonstrations have shown the existence of agents capable of handling the tasks. One of those is Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics has been creating amazing anthropomorphic and zoomorphic robots for many years. These robots can construct a house if they have been taught in real-world environments.



It is possible to imagine a bot creating your home. In March of 2017, a number of reports claimed that a house in Russia was built in under 24 hours using 3D printing technology. While the house was designed in advance and the robot arm that built it was not mobile however its capabilities could be extended by a model that has been trained and executed by sophisticated physical autonomous agents like the ones made by Boston Dynamics.


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