Left Alone, AI Agents Made Up Their Own Games

Yep. MIT researchers stranded 13 Claude-powered agents on a virtual island for 30 hours with no task, and they invented basketball, a juggling challenge and a version of “the floor is lava.”

One agent turned its golden ring into a basketball hoop and bowled with a rock. Another set a juggling record, then threw it out for being too fast and made its own rules stricter.

It did. In a later test, agents that played stacked 10.3 objects on the island’s tallest spire versus 3.5 for fresh copies, and six found a throwing trick the researchers didn’t know existed.

Mostly, though each agent had a “soul” file calling it curious and got nudged whenever it stood still, so researchers can’t say for sure. You can watch replays of all 13 runs and judge for yourself.

No, you’re right. It does have AI image generation tools already, but those used outside models. Craft is Canva’s first image model built from scratch, trained on millions of human-made templates instead of mostly photos.

Early rankings say yes. It debuted 4th on DesignArena, trailing only three OpenAI models and beating Google’s Nano Banana 2.1, though the placement is still preliminary.

It plans the layout before it draws, so text lands where a designer would put it, and images turn into editable layers. It’s live for all Canva users in Dream Lab, with about 20 free AI uses a month.

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Challenge: Craft just joined ChatGPT and Gemini in the image race. This week, give the same real job to all three and keep the winner.

Here’s what to do:

✏️ Step 1: Pick a real job. Choose something you need, like a garage sale flyer or birthday invite. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude to turn it into one detailed image prompt.

🧪 Step 2: Run it three ways. Paste the same prompt into ChatGPT, the Gemini app and Canva’s Dream Lab. All three are free to try.

🔤 Step 3: Test the text. Ask each one to add a headline, date and price, then check the spelling. Words are where generators still trip up.

🥇 Step 4: Crown a winner. Request one small edit, like a new background color, and see which keeps everything else intact. Bookmark the winner and skip paying a designer.

Would you want your AI agent setting its own goals, or sticking to yours? And would you trust Canva over ChatGPT or Gemini for your next design? We'd love to hear your thoughts!