20/09/2022MMDLComments (4)

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build in Minecraft [New 2024]

UPDATED 2024, FIXED LINKS, ADDED IMAGES. Comment anything to add.

This post contains a list of links relating to the current state of AI in Minecraft. That means using Artificial Intelligence, bots, programs, mods and command blocks to automate the game. For example, automated building tools, procedurally generated cities, Blender-to-Minecraft and general AI gameplay.

Important! The term “AI” is thrown around a lot but may not accurately describe everything here.

Warning: Watch our for robot uprising!

Procedural Generation 1: GDMC

Generative Design in Minecraft (GDMC) is a project “where people build AI generators that make interesting Minecraft Settlements”. In other words, pushing procedural generation to its limits.

The project is headed by PhDs Michael Cerny Green, Christoph Salge, Rodrigo Canaan, Christian Guckelsberger and Julian Togelius. See the wiki and YouTube videos below for information or to join.

“AI and Games” is a related, useful “YouTube series on research and applications of Artifical Intelligence in video games”. They covered GDMC: Villages Built by AI – The Generative Design in Minecraft Competition

Andrew Quist hosts the website Subdivisionary, where in 2019-20 he shared two articles – his quest for infinite cities (andrewmanq.github.io) featuring Procedural Architecture (andrewmanq.github.io).

Procedural Generation 2: PMC

Planet Minecraft hosted a Procedural generation competition in April 2020. “This contest aims at creating a city…powered by a self-replicating machine able to generate urban environments on any flat area of any Minecraft world or server! No two cities will be the same.”

Here is an important highlight from the contest with heavy usage of proper procedural generation:

Gheppio’s massive Procedural Metropolis of the PMC community! – Infinity Project. It features 342 unique buildings – 6 components built by each of the 56 collaborating builders! It is described as “a machine that everybody in the community can use in their worlds or servers to automatically generate cities and towns.”

A unique city sprouts from a central “seed” building, and everything else is generated around it. For a video showcase and full interview, history and mechanics of the project, see Interview with Gheppio!

The project is based upon Gheppio’s 2019 Infinity City, which didn’t have the contributing builders or other improvements: Infinity City – Planetary Terraforming Project with Self-Replicating Technology

Both cities have downloads as they were published in contest mode.

Procedural Generation 3: Mod

The Endless City Generation Mod:

This Minecraft mod is a bit like the previous city, but very basic and of historic interest. Published as far back as 2014, the mod relies on a new city flat world type, which it fills with a tight grid of structures.

Bots 1: Baritone and AI players

Such automation tools have been around for years, especially for creating build timelapses or as part of cheat clients to automate tasks like mining/building. “Baritone” is a popular pathfinding bot from GitHub.

MineRL: Towards AI in Minecraft is a project developing AI that can do tasks that a normal survival player would do. How long until bots top all Minecraft speedrun categories?

BASALT Competition 2022 (minerl.io) (Benchmark test to develop the bots)
[2312.02405] BEDD: The MineRL BASALT Evaluation and Demonstrations Dataset for Training and Benchmarking Agents that Solve Fuzzy Tasks (arxiv.org)
Discord (CHAT)

Did you know that Jeff the AI did an automated, overseen run to the FAR LANDS?

Bots 2: Chat GPT and beyond

YouTuber Emergent Garden has a scary description full of big words: “Life simulations, neural networks, cellular automata, and other emergent programs.”

On his channel, he has recently showcased the mineflayer bot creator from GitHub, and paired it with software like Chat GPT to try and get the AI to follow commands and survive or build things. Safe to say these tools have a long way to go – GPT did best, rivaled by Claude, while Google’s Gemini… struggled.

Command and Structure blocks

Procedural generation assisted by the in-game command/structure blocks specifically. Very good for making fun mini-games without going into complex code or AI, though it can be limiting. Data packs can be used to package your creation, such as INFINITE BACKROOMS – by MrCube6.

Now for some YouTube (There are too many backrooms examples!):

Blender/Google Earth imports

While not directly AI, these tools could prove ground-breaking in automating the building process, much like bots. They’re coming for builders like me, noo! First up, Blender model to Minecraft converter (paid):

Google Earth are another obvious candidate for importing stuff into Minecraft. Unfortunately, using Google Maps directly in your project makes it impossible to share due to Google’s terms of service.

Build The Earth (below) member MineFact has developed “an algorithm that can recreate every area in the world with it’s terrain, structures, streets and more.” It creates gray boxes with correct size and scale, greatly speeding things up for the builders who just have to go over and add all the façade details.

MineFact – YouTube
Discord (BTE NYC)

Related: Build The Earth?

First link: Tired of AI messing up your build? Check out the insane BuildTheEarth collab by thousands of builders headed by PippenFTS on a quest to re-build the real world 1:1 into Minecraft! It’s slow…

Second link: Why not download your own part of Earth’s terrain for free and build in it? There’s another website which I’ll mention as a footnote: GeoBoxers offers paid services that convert a part of the real world (buildings and everything) into the game, much like the Google Earth conversion we covered.

d[o_0]b

Comments (4) for post “Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build in Minecraft [New 2024]”

RONIN says:
21/09/2022 at 13:57
Build THe Earth could use this, just image what they’d make
Reply
- Avinash says:
  14/04/2023 at 18:24
  Earth build
  Reply
  - Admin says:
    14/04/2023 at 18:58
    The only correct answer 😂
    Reply
- dwdadfafdw says:
  09/05/2023 at 22:43
  yeah and it would cut the time down to years
  Reply