Can AI agents build civilizations in Minecraft?
Project Sid: Many-agent simulations toward AI civilization
This paper introduces Project Sid, exploring large-scale simulations of AI agents to understand their behavior as a "civilization." It demonstrates how AI agents can develop specialized roles, follow and change collective rules (like tax laws), and transmit culture (memes and religion) within simulated societies in a Minecraft environment.
Key to LLM-based multi-agent systems is the proposed PIANO architecture (Parallel Information Aggregation via Neural Orchestration). It uses concurrent modules with a central controller to improve coherence (consistency between agent actions and communication) and allows realistic real-time interactions. The research also reveals challenges like individual agents getting stuck due to hallucinations, miscommunication within agent groups, and the lack of established benchmarks for evaluating progress in complex multi-agent scenarios like a simulated civilization. The use of Minecraft offers a scalable environment for testing emergent behaviors and social dynamics.