This AI-powered Minecraft could represent the future of real-time video creation.

“What if you could say, ‘Hey, add a flying unicorn to this?’ Literally, talk to the model. Or, “Make everything medieval here,” and then, boom, it’s all medieval. Or “Turn it into Star wars“, and that’s it Star wars” says Leitersdorf.

The main limitation at the moment is the hardware. In their current demo they used Nvidia cards, but in the future they plan to use Sohu, a new card that engraved is under development, which the firm claims will improve performance by 10 times. This gain will significantly reduce the cost and energy required to create real-time interactive video. This would allow Descartes and Etched to make a better version of their current demo, allowing the game to run longer, with fewer hallucinations, and at a higher resolution. They say the new chip will also allow more players to use the model at the same time.

“Custom AI chips can provide significant gains in performance and energy efficiency,” says Siddharth Garg, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NYU Tandon who is not affiliated with Etched or Decart.

Etched says its benefits come from developing maps specifically for AI development. For example, the chip uses a single core, which he says allows complex mathematical operations to be performed more efficiently. The chip also focuses on inference (where the AI ​​makes predictions) rather than learning (where the AI ​​learns from data).

“We’re building something much more specialized than any chip on the market today,” says Robert Wachen, co-founder and chief operating officer of Etched. They plan to launch projects on the new map next year. Until the chip is deployed or its capabilities are verified, Etched’s claims have yet to be confirmed. And given the degree of AI specialization in the best GPUs on the market, Garg is “very skeptical about 10x improvement just from smarter or more specialized design.”

But both companies have big ambitions. In their opinion, if the efficiency gains are close to those claimed by Etched, they will be able to create virtual doctors or tutors in real time. “It all comes down the pipe, and it happens because of better architecture and better equipment to power it. That’s what we’re really trying to convey to people with the proof of concept here.” – says Wachen.

In the meantime, you can try out a demo of their version of Minecraft. Here.