Monkeys play Minecraft

[wispy cave]

A few months ago I collaborated with ChrisDaCow (a youtuber) and created a mod to allow bonobos (a species of ape) to play Minecraft all by themselves. I made Minecraft able to be interacted using the bonobos' familiar control scheme: a touchscreen!
ChrisDaCow worked with the Ape Initiative - a non-profit in Iowa which works with these smart apes - to further the research into the minds of the bonobos. Minecraft was a unique challenge for Kanzi (a bonobo at the research centre) and he completed tasks that they had never done before.

• If you want to read more about my work in this project, check out my website where I go into a little more detail: https://www.isxander.dev/about/#ape-initiative
• If you want to see the source code for this mod, check out the repo I just made public: https://github.com/isXander/KanziControl
• If you want to learn more about the Ape Initiative, check out their website: https://www.apeinitiative.org/

https://youtu.be/UKpFoYqN9-0

[radiant olive]

Holy cungadero that is nuts

[spiral sun]

this is actually insane

crazy idea with great execution

g fucking g

[plain obsidian]

Once again, the Minecraft modding community stands out from all the rest.

[wispy cave]

wasn't all me though! Lots of credit to ChrisDaCow and his builder, @verbal willow

and of course Ape Initiative

[spiral sun]

did you have a lot of back and forth with them on how to game design for a monkey?

[wispy cave]

I was only a tiny part of making that video happen

[wispy cave]

Yeah lots of prototyping and testing. They had two visits, between the two we made lots of revisions

[spiral sun]

you can see a bit of that in the vid yea, going from the basic arrows above breakable cubes to more guided paths and primary colors

pretty cool to get a look into brain of monke

[wispy cave]

I had nothing to do with the maps, I was just working on the mod itself

[spiral sun]

i see

still nice though

[dawn glade]

one of the coolest things I've seen here in a while

the more I watch the video, the more I think he's smarter than me

[wispy cave]

lmao

[livid cypress]

Plays better than my father 100%
Thanks for sharing it

[undone stone]

Incredible.

[odd fog]

That is unbeliv-, No. It is just incredible.

[hybrid tartan]

Saw that vid in recommended. I think I'll watch it now :)

[delicate sundial]

Thats awesome lmao, gonna check the video in a bit

[old epoch]

ahhh i love the minecraft modding community. i love that we have someone who specializes in controller mods and can just whip up a mod to control the game with a touchscreen. literally what other modding community is like this

[lofty sluice]

what's so special about this? 1.8 players have been playing the game for years?

[dawn glade]

it's about smart monkeys, you know

[wispy cave]

i wonder if Kanzi can jitter click >15cps

part 2: kanzi plays hypixel bedwars

[dawn glade]

first you'd need to give kanzi meteor touchscreen bindings so he has the same setup as the other players

[forest wharf]

litterally watched this yesterday, it's so cool