Oasis (Minecraft)

Oasis
Gameplay from its official release trailer
Developer(s)	Robert Wachen Dean Leitersdorf
Publisher(s)	Decart Etched
Series	Minecraft (unofficial)
Release	October 31, 2024 (2024-10-31)
Genre(s)	Sandbox

Oasis is a playable, clone version of the 2011 sandbox game Minecraft, ran entirely using artificial intelligence (AI). The game, which began development in 2022 between the AI company "Decart" and the computer hardware startup "Etched", was released by Decart to the public on October 31, 2024. The AI operates using "next-frame prediction", which tries to anticipate the players next action from their keyboard and mouse inputs, based on millions of hours of prior Minecraft gameplay footage the AI was given.

The game launched to an enormous audience, almost crashing the website hosting the game within 24 hours after its launch. Reactions were overwhelmingly negative however, as the game appeared to display no coherent logic in its actions or setting. Some argued the unpredictability of the AI made the game fun to watch and play though, and that the game's launch could mark the first proof of concept in the genre of AI-run video games.

Creation and playstyle

The demo 'proof of concept' version of the game was created by the Israeli San Francisco-based artificial intelligence developer "Decart" and the Silicon Valley computer hardware startup "Etched", and funded by a $21 million grant from Israeli-American billionaire Oren Zeev and New York-based firm Sequoia Capital. The idea for the game originated from University of Harvard graduate and co-founder of Etched, Robert Wachen, and Israel Institute of Technology graduate and co-founder of Decart, Dean Leitersdorf, after meeting in 2022, and sharing a common interest in the uses for OpenAI's GPT-3. The game was named after the sci-fi novel and movie Ready Player One. It was further announced and released to the public by Decart for free on October 31, 2024, and claimed to be the first AI playable open-world model game. The game intended to replicate the playstyle of the 2011 sandbox game Minecraft through the sole use of AI, using no coding in the process. The AI which runs the game was trained by watching millions of hours of game footage from Minecraft online. It used this information gathered to run "next-frame prediction", which tries to anticipate what the players next action will from their keyboard and mouse inputs based on prior videos, in an attempt to simulate real-time gameplay, and in-game physics and controls. The form of prediction used does not store data, however, and will lose track of past inputs as others are given. The game also used Nvidia graphics processing units or GPUs for its demo's hardware, but plans on switching to faster and more energy-efficient Sohu GPUs in the future, which are currently being developed by Etched for the some use in AI. Etched has also announced the possibility of the game becoming open sourced in the future.

Reception

Upon its launch, the game received a large amount of attention, with the hundreds of thousands trying to play within the first 24 hours after launch almost crashing the website hosting the game. Many players posted videos of their experience with the game online, which often showed Oasis could not maintain coherent logic in its actions or setting. This included a number of instances of blocks changing after being placed or turned away from, and biomes changing dramatically for similar reasons. The game also presented low-quality graphics, running between 360p and 720p consistently at 20 FPS, no in-game sound, and could only be played between two and five minutes at a time before restarting. These issues led the American business magazine Forbes to referred to the game as a "haunted", "hallucination-filled nightmare", with others drawing comparisons to playing with dementia or The Backrooms. Obversely, many also credited the game's unpredictability as what made it interesting to watch and play. Leitersdorf, as well as a number of commentors, have commented that while the game may have fell short of replicating Minecraft in its demo launch, it was the first step towards something more advanced, which could one day resemble Minecraft or any other game. Others, like Tom's Hardware have expressed doubts a game without code could ever look as good as one with, as they'd fail to capture "the point of what makes games fun—or even coherent".

In terms of legality, Decart and Etched did not receive permission from Microsoft to create a copy of their game using generative artificial intelligence, nor did they credit Minecraft or any of its developers. No legal actions have been taken by the latter as artificial intelligence and copyright remains largely vague legally.

See also

• Ai_sponge
• Nothing, Forever
• TrumporBiden2024