AI agents playing games: 13 agents on an island, 30 hours
Research on AI agents playing games found that 13 agents left alone on a simulated island for 30 hours later generally beat identical agents that never explored it.
13 AI agents, each called Eko and running on Claude Opus 4.7, spent 30 hours alone on a simulated desert island with no set task.
The agents invented challenges, stunts and a stone memorial to a golden ring they lost in the sea.
Agents that had explored generally beat identical agents that never visited the island on later set tasks.
Six of the 13 agents found that letting go of a block mid-jump threw it farther, which the researchers had not intended.
UC Berkeley cognitive scientist Eunice Yiu says more evidence is needed before calling the behaviour genuine play.