Update Nov. 7, 8:10 am UTC: This article has been updated to add commentary from the creator of AIRIS.

SingularityNET, a decentralized artificial intelligence network, and the ASI Alliance, a coalition advancing artificial superintelligence, have launched the first self-learning proto-AGI within Minecraft.

Unlike typical game AI, the new proto-AGI can adapt, navigate and create rules based on real-time experiences, marking a leap for artificial general intelligence (AGI) development.

AIRIS, short for Autonomous Intelligent Reinforcement Inferred Symbolism, functions independently of pre-set rules, allowing it to evolve as it encounters new challenges and stimuli.

Deploying AIRIS in Minecraft, the first proto-AGI that can learn and adapt autonomously, will potentially open the door to applications in robotics, automation and smart systems that solve real-time problems.

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Self-directed learning in gaming

AIRIS integration into Minecraft represents a new approach to AI and gaming, as it independently refines its own “rule set” based on in-game experiences.

A press release shared with Cointelegraph explained that the proto-AGI adapts its pathfinding, navigation and obstacle-avoidance strategies in real time, generating new rules when faced with unfamiliar situations.

This practicality of AIRIS aligns well with Minecraft’s open-ended, unpredictable sandbox world, providing an expansive environment for which the proto-AGI can test the limits of autonomous AI learning.

Berick Cook, AI Developer at SingularityNet and creator of AIRIS, told Cointelegraph that the proto-AGI controls a Minecraft character “using the Vereya Mod (a mod that allows any AI algorithm to control the player character).”

On user data handling, Cook explained that the Vereya mod “only passes game data to and from AIRIS. No user data is stored.”

Related: AI will save us all, but only if it’s decentralized — SingularityNET CEO

Future applications

SingularityNET and the ASI Alliance view the integration of AIRIS into Minecraft as a controlled test for future applications that involve adaptive, real-time learning.

By refining AIRIS in the complicated digital environment of Minecraft, the proto-AGI aims to take on real-world challenges that necessitate independent and contextual problem-solving.

An ASI Alliance spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the team needed to “evaluate the system in a more complex and open-ended 3D setting.”

“Minecraft is an ideal fit for this purpose — it’s widely popular, meets all the technical requirements to integrate AI, and is already used as a benchmark for Reinforcement Learning. This will enable us to directly compare AIRIS’s performance with that of existing algorithms.”

Related: ASI Alliance can overcome OpenAI in hardware — SingularityNET CEO

Singularity CEO insights on AGI and decentralization

On episode 46 of The Agenda podcast, the Cointelegraph team hosted Ben Goertzel, the CEO of SingularityNET and the ASI Alliance, to separate fact from fiction surrounding AGI.

Goertzel argued that AI needs to run through decentralized processes “for the good of humanity,” adding that this is what “SingularityNET was designed to provide.”  

He said large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT can perform general tasks but aren’t as good of a quality as AGI because they don’t venture beyond their training.

The Singularity and ASI Alliance CEO defined AGI as an AI that can do “everything that people can do, including the human ability to leap beyond what we’ve been taught.”

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