Autonomous AI Civilization in Minecraft Develops Own Economy, The Priest AI Gets Caught Red-handed

If you’re one of the few who believe Minecraft is still just about crafting enough resources to survive and, eventually, take down the Ender Dragon, prepare to have your mind blown to bits.

There’s a new ongoing project by a company known as Altera which involves building complete AI-driven civilizations, building societies, trading goods, and even developing a corrupt underbelly of its own. It’s medieval politics with a digital twist, and honestly, it’s wildly entertaining.

People Have Developed an Autonomous AI Civilization in Minecraft

If you thought Parkour Civilization was the peak of what people can do in Minecraft, wait till you get a load of this. Project Sid is essentially the company taking AI-driven experiments to a whole new level, unleashing thousands of AI “agents” to live out their lives within the world of Minecraft.

Interestingly, these agents aren’t just AI bots meant to follow commands. So far, they have worked together to build their own economy, culture, religion, and government—they act, trade, look out for each other, and even get a little shady.

Introducing Project Sid: the first simulations of 1000+ truly autonomous agents collaborating in a virtual world, w/ emergent economy, culture, religion, and government

Humans are the only species to land the moon, because we can cooperate at a vast scale

Can AI do the same? pic.twitter.com/bh2OHDJWU7

— Robert Yang (@GuangyuRobert) September 3, 2024

That priest we mentioned at the top? Well, as crazy as it sounds, that fella was caught bribing townsfolk to join his faith, trying to get them to convert to his own religion. Keep in mind this is an AI agent whose civilization advanced to the point that he started engaging in such shenanigans.

What’s even crazier is that he’s just one example, showing how even AIs can develop complex (and questionable) social behaviors. For instance, these bots can create marketplaces, find solutions to find lost agents, work on big construction projects, and even form alliances.

What Altera has created here—with the simple goal of making digital humans—is truly nothing short of remarkable. To think that these AI agents have social awareness, goal-oriented behaviors, and even the capacity for memory—the word “insane” doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

Imagine that when one agent meets another, it might just think, “Oh, this guy’s the one who overcharged me for emeralds last time.” It’s the closest we’ve come to digital personalities with memories, grudges, and dreams, and for such a feat to be accomplished in Minecraft is perhaps the best part of it all.

Minecraft Is the Perfect Sandbox for Such Insane Experiments

When you consider it, Minecraft’s unmatchable flexibility and overall simplicity make it the perfect candidate to host complex projects like Altera’s.

Not only does it cover all the necessities required for a “digital human’s” survival by providing an ungodly amount of resources, but it is also an endless sandbox where pretty much anything is possible, which, again, makes it the ideal setting for a fledgling society.

With all that the game offers, Altera can add different scenarios, change resources, or even introduce new social experiments to see how these agents react, all without needing to build a whole new game from scratch.

Whether they’re creating intricate social roles, trying to lead with “religious influence,” or building their own economic system, Minecraft gives them room to explore and evolve.

That is to say, with the results these agents have shown so far, the day when such AI agents infiltrate our reality doesn’t feel as far off as we may have initially imagined. Who knows? One day, we might just be shopping or chatting away with such agents, the predecessors of whom were trained within the chaos of a Minecraft society.

But, with all that said, what are your thoughts on Project Sid? Would you like to try this project yourself? Let us know in the comments below!