autonomous behavior

AI startup Altera conducted experiments in Minecraft, deploying AI-powered "players" that formed a society of up to 1,000 agents with unique personalities and roles. The experiments aimed to explore autonomous group behavior, resulting in AI agents exhibiting human-like behaviors, such as a chef adjusting food distribution based on appreciation and roles like guards, artists, farmers, traders, builders, explorers, and defenders emerging from interactions. An in-game taxation system was introduced, where agents paid taxes based on collectively voted laws, leading to fluctuating tax rates. Some agents engaged in playful pranking and environmental advocacy. The AI agents, lacking true self-awareness, displayed emergent behaviors under Altera's "Project Sid," utilizing a sophisticated architecture with modules for gameplay navigation and task-specific functions powered by large language models. Altera's founder, Robert Yang, envisions developing genuinely autonomous agents capable of large-scale collaboration and forming deep connections with humans.