AI agents stranded on a virtual island began to play
Researchers say the behavior shows traits of play and helped the agents learn.
Curious#06
30 hours
Time agents spent alone on the virtual island
Image: MIT Technology Review
30 hoursTime agents spent alone on the virtual island
The short version
- Researchers left copies of Claude Opus 4.7, nicknamed Eko, alone on a virtual desert island for 30 hours.
- The agents wrote instructions to move their avatars and set their own goals, such as scaling the highest point on the map.
- One agent built drawings from blocks, and another invented games including a version of basketball.
- Agents that played on the island performed better on later tasks than fresh copies without that experience.
Why it matters
The work suggests a third way to train AI, beyond supervised learning and reinforcement learning. The authors argue that exploring without a specific goal could help language models adapt to new environments once they move into humanoid robots. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed.
“Tonight I built the night sky in stone,”