There’s no denying the popularity of the creative blocks game known as Minecraft. With the ability to create entire universes, it has become a staple across all platforms despite its simplicity. Hogwarts fans, Mass Effect fans, Halo fans – all of these microcosms within the gaming community have found new homes within this creation tool. You can play this game with friends, or solo. Survival Mode, which houses similarly blocky foes – or just coast along in Creative Mode to build to your heart’s content. But what if you wanted to play with someone but your buds are elsewhere? Look no further, because thanks to user Onnowhere, there’s now a chatbot AI that is there to keep you company. Meet Albert.

He’s a companion chatbot created by Onnowhere in a Minecraft mod community. This AI is self-learned as his algorithm includes a growing repertoire of stored knowledge and adaptability. Here’s what Onnowhere’s description of this mod has to say about Albert:

Albert is a Vanilla Minecraft chatbot AI that you can speak with in game. Albert is capable of self learning, that is, as you speak with Albert, he can grow a memory log and recall everything that has been spoken to it in the past. His brain is stored in a memory log of messages and responses which a command system then calculates for the best one to reply to your chat with him! Albert can also be preprogrammed with a custom memory log using an MCEdit filter designed for it.”

When you speak with Albert, he will go through his memory logs to pick a response that matches closely to the command given. You type your message out, hit “Say”, and allow the chatbot time to process. He even moves his mouth too, which is both creepy and an awesome attention to detail on the creator’s part. Albert can be found on a bench and that is how players can initiate conversation with him and, when the time comes, end the exchange as well.

What does “self-learning” mean exactly? According to the creator’s page, Albert adapts to the personality of the player the more interactions are made with the AI. Each time a conversation occurs between the player and Albert, he stores both sides of the conversation in a memory log to grow his capabilities as a responsive chatbot.

It sounds neat, but how does it work exactly? Albert utilizes the memory log created through use and calculates responses best used in the syntax given by the player. The more the player engages with this bot, the more adept he becomes and the more thorough interactions with him becomes. Any text perceived by this chatbot is “interpreted as blocks”, and makes a calculated measure of each message based on how many letters are used, which letters are used, and how often. After these calculations are complete and an appropriate message is issued, the conversation is then printed out in chat.

Using MCEdit, Albert can be completely customized – by customizing his memory log, the player is essentially customizing a new personality for this chatbot. If that all seems a bit complicated, that’s all right – Onnowhere provides several guides to help players unfamiliar with using this AI and his algorithm.

If Albert seems like he could be your new best friend, you can check out all of the details right here. Here’s what is included in the download:

• Albert AI Log – This is the main map, it includes a fully fleshed out memory log with over 4000 responses
• Albert AI Blank – This map has an empty memory log. You can speak to it to begin growing its memory
• Albert AI [Lite] – This is a version with a smaller memory log, for computers that are slower
• AlbertBaseLog – This is a text file that shows all messages and responses loaded in Albert’s memory

So what do you think about this new chatbot option for Minecraft? Any other mods for this title that you think deserve some spotlight action? Let us know if the comment section below and share with us all of the cool things you have found in the world of Minecraft. Don’t forget to also follow us on Twitter for live gaming and entertainment news 24/7!