This makes it easier for an AI to do their job. The Facebook team believes that even if their AI does not succeed in a lot of tasks, it will be useful. "We believe that we are making progress towards becoming a useful assistant without having to be able to succeed in every request," they say.

It's still difficult. Understanding ordinary language is one of the biggest challenges. The Facebook team imagines the following request:

PLAYER Make a tower that is 15 blocks high. You can then put an enormous smiley on top. Assistant :

This seemingly simple request requires a surprising amount of expertise. The assistant must be able to comprehend the concept behind a tower and the steps to construct it. They must also be aware that 15 blocks are a measurement of the tower's height and what "15" signifies. roof is on fire They must also be aware of the concept of smiley and know how to build it, and what it means to put it on top.

However, the possibilities for an AI to learn are huge. If Facebook is able to get enough human assistance, the assistant might ask humans for help learning.

And Facebook is committing itself to the task of designing the AI to improve itself. One of the most frequent critiques of AI systems is their inability to master new tasks beyond what they've been taught and for which data was collected and processed. However, researchers believe that the Minecraft environment is a perfect one to develop this kind of learning.

That's interesting work that maps out an ambitious goal for Facebook. Of course, it is still in the early stages. This work is described by the team as"a "call for arms."

However, a pre-release version of the assistant is available for ordinary users to begin experimenting with. Anybody can download it here.