New Merl AI Opposes Minecraft’s Core Fundamentals
The development of the new Merl AI feature goes against Minecraft’s fundamental values of creativity, exploration, and community-driven learning because it generates answers with AI. This effectively undermines Minecraft as a whole, since people will “ask Merl for help” instead of learning how to play the game themselves. Minecraft is more fun when you don’t know what every single block does, how every single feature works, and haven’t been spoonfed how to do every tutorial. Merl’s job is to do exactly that. That is why I claim Merl undermines the core values of Minecraft.
Creativity is what makes Minecraft Minecraft. Without player creativity, the game ceases to be unique and is just like any other game, such as Fortnite, Roblox, or others. The real reason Minecraft is special is that everything we see in-game is created by players and the community, not by some robot or computer program. In fact, the very equations that form a Minecraft world are only a foundation and can be modified by the player by placing and removing blocks. By using Merl, we will begin to see fewer creative ways of building. In fact, the most recent addition of the Copper Golem undermines creativity because it effectively sorts items for the player, rather than having them create their own complex redstone contraptions to do it themselves. Some people make a career off Minecraft redstone, using math and computer science knowledge in creative ways to form complex contraptions, within the game’s restrictions. AI solving problems for the player discourages this kind of creativity.
Players have developed in-game creativity as a form of art over the years. From fighting techniques to automatic farms to new mobs, the player is and should always be the source of new content. From hiding traps in the ground to dropping anvils on unsuspecting players to creative ways of using the Pythagorean theorem to land extra hits, YouTubers like Technoblade, JudeLow, rekrap2, and Dream have all found creative ways to enrich the Minecraft community through YouTube videos (Dream, 2020; JudeLow, 2025; http://Minecraft.net , 2020; rekrap2, 2021; Technoblade, 2021). Unscripted content is what drives the community, but an AI is just a giant script under the hood. Mathematical algorithms formulate predictions, and the AI is ultimately limited to only content that has already been created. Artificial intelligence can only innovate, not invent, because it is artificial and can only use what it’s given. Organic content is what drives the community, and this is what we need more of.
A recent YouTube video by PhoenixSC indicates that a number of users are dissatisfied with Merl’s performance. In a video posted on September 7, 2025, at 03:50, the AI repeatedly identifies the word “minecart” as a bad word and refuses to respond to any messages containing that word (PhoenixSC, 2025). Data is necessary to train AI, so this begs the question: Is Mojang going to turn to the dark side and steal user data? Microsoft already uses its telemetry data and some of Minecraft’s player data to improve Merl. Neither Microsoft nor Mojang has provided clear information on what they will do with user data after acquisition. Recent events with ChatGPT have shown that the AI can read out the titles of other users’ conversations when asked to, since the data is used to improve the model (IBM, 2025).
It is crucial that Merl AI be disbanded immediately to safeguard the creativity and privacy of the Minecraft community. AI should not exist to tell players what to do, especially in a creative building game like Minecraft. As we know, there’s a reason AI-generated images look bad, and it’s because they are lesser images, not meant to fully substitute the creativity of a genuine artist. Should Microsoft keep Merl online, it should remain strictly a service for product guidance only and should refuse questions about the mechanics of the game itself to protect creativity.
References
YouTube. (2020, February 28). Minecraft, But The World Is Controlled By A Player... YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_IYvbO1UU0
YouTube. (2025, June 9). Abusing Glitches To Make OP Traps. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mq_6-UOTRY
Dankis, S. (2020, September 27). Minecraft live: Vote for the next mob. http://Minecraft.net . https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-live-vote-for-next-mob
YouTube. (2021, April 1). Hitting people with anvils when they least suspect it - EC60. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSWgQJ5ICgE
YouTube. (2021a, March 16). Technoblade Explains Pythagoras Theorem #shorts. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB_9GfeqFvQ
PhoenixSC. (2025, September 7). Minecraft’s new AI Bot “Merl” is useless. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSt7GuXe2zg
Gomstyn, A., & Jonker, A. (2025, July 29). Exploring privacy issues in the age of ai. IBM. https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-privacy
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