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EvoCraft: A New Challenge for Open-Endedness

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Applications of Evolutionary Computation (EvoApplications 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 12694))

Abstract

This paper introduces EvoCraft, a framework for Minecraft designed to study open-ended algorithms. We introduce an API that provides an open-source Python interface for communicating with Minecraft to place and track blocks. In contrast to previous work in Minecraft that focused on learning to play the game, the grand challenge we pose here is to automatically search for increasingly complex artifacts in an open-ended fashion. Compared to other environments used to study open-endedness, Minecraft allows the construction of almost any kind of structure, including actuated machines with circuits and mechanical components. We present initial baseline results in evolving simple Minecraft creations through both interactive and automated evolution. While evolution succeeds when tasked to grow a structure towards a specific target, it is unable to find a solution when rewarded for creating a simple machine that moves. Thus, EvoCraft offers a challenging new environment for automated search methods (such as evolution) to find complex artifacts that we hope will spur the development of more open-ended algorithms. A Python implementation of the EvoCraft framework is available at: github.com/real-itu/Evocraft-py.

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Notes

  1. 1.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Christoph Salge, Raluca D. Gaina, and Sam Devlin for helpful discussions on Minecraft. This project was partially supported by a Sapere Aude: DFF-Starting Grant (9063-00046B) and by the Danish Ministry of Education and Science, Digital Pilot Hub and Skylab Digital.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Djordje Grbic, Rasmus Berg Palm, Elias Najarro & Sebastian Risi

  2. Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Claire Glanois

  3. modl.ai, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Sebastian Risi

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  1. Djordje Grbic
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  2. Rasmus Berg Palm
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  4. Claire Glanois
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  5. Sebastian Risi
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ETSIIT-CITIC, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Pedro A. Castillo

  2. Université Le Havre Normandie, Le Havre, France

    Juan Luis Jiménez Laredo

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Grbic, D., Palm, R.B., Najarro, E., Glanois, C., Risi, S. (2021). EvoCraft: A New Challenge for Open-Endedness. In: Castillo, P.A., Jiménez Laredo, J.L. (eds) Applications of Evolutionary Computation. EvoApplications 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12694. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72699-7_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72699-7_21

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