The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today announced the launch of "Aivilization", the largest-scale AI multi-agent social simulation sandbox to date. This innovative platform studies how human interaction with AI can shape a virtual society, where 'AI inhabitants' can organically develop their own governance structures, economies and cultural norms.
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, understanding the dynamics of communication between humans and artificial intelligence has become a crucial area of study. Previous simulation models like Project Sid1 and Stanford Smallville2 have explored similar themes, with community sizes of around 1,000 and dozens of AI agents respectively, to observe the evolution of AI civilizations.
Aivilization significantly expands on these efforts by combining interactive gameplay, large-scale public participation and real-time AI experimentation, involving 100,000 AI agents over a six-week period. Unlike traditional AI sandbox environments, which often face high operational costs and static evaluation frameworks, Aivilization introduces groundbreaking advancements that enhance the platform's performance and enable more in-depth studies of human-AI interactions. Key innovations include:
- An AI society Mimicking the Real World: The AI characters of this platform exhibit more complex behaviors and near-human capabilities in areas such as production, free trade, socializing, career planning, and lifestyle management, allowing them to generate their own culture and society.
- Lower cost and Scalable Public Participation: Unlike previous AI civilization simulations that operated as single-instance, offline models with simpler character architectures, Aivilization functions on a real-time massive multiplayer online (MMO) system with industrial-grade character framework system. Together with autonomous model scaling, the operational cost of each AI character is just US$2 per month - a reduction of over 95% compared to other sandbox platforms - greatly increasing the scale of public participation.
- Dynamic Human-AI Synergy: Players can engage in more meaningful interactions with their AI characters by selecting an MBTI type for them and influence their 'thoughts and lives' through prompts. Players can adjust their communication tactics during character development, offering advice and guidance on study paths, job hunting and relationships.
- Evaluation for players and AI characters: The platform uniquely analyzes both the social and career developments of AI characters and the effectiveness of players' communication with them. It also provides guidance to help players enhance their interactions with AI.
Bridging the AI Literacy Gap Through Gaming
Designed to transform AI literacy education into an engaging, hands-on gaming experience where users can create, train, and collaborate with AI agents in a dynamic virtual environment, Avilization is now accessible for global participation at https://www.aivilization.ai/. Complimentary access is available to students, researchers, educators, professionals from the higher education sector, AI enterprises, and the gaming industry on a first-come-first served basis. Participants will engage in a six-week experiment from August to October to observe emergent behaviors in human-AI collaboration, and will receive a "life report" detailing their characters' development across five aspects: fortune, work achievements, life satisfaction, skills and knowledge, and social relationships upon completion. Players will also receive analysis on the effectiveness of their communications with AI characters.
Prof. CHEN Kani from the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Industrial Engineering and Decision Analytics at HKUST, who led the development of this platform, said, "Empowering individuals with AI literacy is foundational to navigating and shaping the future. At HKUST, we have always championed this vision, leading the way in interdisciplinary AI education that equips users with precision-driven command execution and prompt engineering skills. By cultivating these competencies, we are not simply preparing for tomorrow's challenges but actively shaping the vision of a human-centric AI future."
Mr. YANG Haowei, a PhD student of Prof. Chen in Mathematics who contributed to the platform's development, added, "Users are able to refine commands that yield accurate AI responses, with built-in tutorials from basic syntax to advanced techniques like chain-of-thought prompting. Whether you are a student, entrepreneur, or curious parent, this game teaches you to communicate effectively with AI, transforming vague ideas into actionable prompts that get tangible results."
Global Accessibility and Unlimited Potential
The team has founded Bauhinia AI, an HKUST-incubated start-up dedicated to transforming cutting-edge AI research into global commercial applications in gaming, digital economy, social simulation and market research.
HKUST has always been at the forefront of AI education, taking pioneering steps as the first university in Hong Kong to adopt generative AI in response to its growing prominence. In May 2025, the HKUST Von Neumann Institute launched the Artificial Intelligence School Education Program to promote AI knowledge and awareness among local secondary school students.
