Is ml agents dead?

In github, I see last commits like 4 months ago.

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I was wondering the same thing. Can someone from the dev team comment the roadmap for ML Agents?

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++ same question, we need some information about ml-agents

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We are not allowed to ask questions in repo, yet nobody is checking here.

Truly hoping it’s because of an IL2cpp integration/major refactor

Hey everyone I’m Andrew, the Senior Manager for ML-Agents. I took over in January and we have clearly done a poor job communicating with everyone here and the broader community that supports and uses ML-Agents over the last year.

I am sorry and we’re going to fix it and do better.

How are we going to improve:
We are going to put together a “State of the union” for the ML-Agents community in July or early August at the latest. I intend to host a public zoom, to talk through what’s been going on this last year as well as our roadmap and how we can better support our community. We will also update our documentation and post the video so that everyone has the most up to date information.

Thank you for the patience and being vocal about your concerns. We will do better!

Andrew Kemendo

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So in general ML agents is living on and will get updates (in terms of new features and bugfixes, etc)?

Yes! We just wrapped up our roadmap planning last week actually.

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Hey, glad to hear this! Any more concrete idea on when the State of the Union will take place? Thanks

My heart sank when news broke about the recent Unity layoffs and how it primarily affected AI and Engineering divisions. Even though I’m not actively using it right now, ml-agents had always been a joy to work with for me in the past. Hope it’ll come out of the current predicament unscathed.

Btw, the cert on unity3d.ai has expired (this is the URL used on ml-agents’ Github home page).

Same thoughts here.

I see great potential for A.I. like in every possible areas, including gaming. And ml-agents is just super nice to use. One of the main reasons I chose Unity over UE for my project.

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thank you! i was really worried that Unity was to abandon ml-agents and in general all these PRICELESS open source projects… some good friends have been laid off last months and was already looking for alternatives (Godot anyone? :wink:

but it ml-agents stays alive, here i remain. thank you!

How I read this between the lines is that people behind original ML-Agents team are not working on this anymore or am I understanding this wrong? How many people are working on this now?

Why not just post a blog post about current state and make a productboard for it on Product roadmaps | Unity? I don’t get why anyone would want zoom meeting over that but maybe I’m just too old fashioned to understand this.

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Hello,

July’s almost over but I don’t see any updates on the subject that we were promised… Is it still on?

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Looking forward to State Of The Union ML-Agents. August at the latest?

Unity Share price has been in freefall since november 2021. Peaked at 189, 5y average at about 100 $/share. Currently trading at 36. They have invested over a billion in takeovers and are trying to get into the VFX industry, thats why we see all the focus on cinemachine recently.

According to Why Unity Software Stock Plunged 74% in the First Half of 2022 | The Motley Fool Q1 report had unsuspected 110 mil loss in revenue and the company will take steps in Q2 and Q3 to correct the problem.

In the last week of june we’ve heard that 4% of the company (about 200 people) have been layed off. Mostly the AI department and engineering. Looking at git commits Commit Activity · Unity-Technologies/ml-agents · GitHub it does seem that the entire ML agents team is gone or is moved to a private entity.

Best case scenario in my opinion:

A tiny team is still working on ML agents in private repos. In Q4 the shareprice skyrockets and the management decides to re-invest Ai and the development continues as it was with a delay of a year.

Worst case scanario:

Investments and VFX is a dud, company continues to bleed money, CEO is pumping his chest while playing monopoly. Financial crisis crushes stock prices even further. Unity will cut 60% of it’s workforce ( except marketing and sales ) and will focus on strictly core features. All non money making R&D projects will be crucified and hung from the windows of the corporate office. ML agents will be the prime example of “wasted resources”

Update:

Just found a random comment on youtube:

Unity ML-Agents API are based on the Tensorflow library from Google, and Google is moving their ML division to use another library called Jax. Maybe Unity is also going in the same direction, and that explains some of the layoff in the AI department, or this could be only John Riccitielo invese king Midas power working again.

The CEO of unity technologies John Riccitiello has been CEO of EA when it was voted worst company of the year, twice in a row. He also said in an interview: if you’re not thinking about monetisation during your creative process, you’re a “fucking idiot.”

It’s a business world where billions are on the line, so maybe you need a sleek business man like that to run a corporation. On the other hand, the results are not there. Going from 190 to 40 dollar a share. 40 is half of what the company was worth before going public. Cutting engineering to save a buck. Sounds like a CEO from Wish

On 13th of july unity is cutting Gogaya project (ultimate AAA sample project tutorial)

Seems that all non money making initiatives are getting an axe one by one.

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Damn!! :(((
But why then all those promising messages above, from Unity stuff. Lies?

The messages are fairly vague. “We need to communicate better”. “There will be a roadmap, zoom call with questions”. It’s the first step in a negotiation technique, self audit, showing empathy to diffuse frustrations ( check the book Never split the difference, by Christopher Voss )

I’ve worked at 2 companies that were stripped and sold off. I also had the pleasure developing in Shiva3D which ran out of money. Some similarities here. When things are bad, there is a big reachout to community/employees. Everyone talks, people can share opinions. Sometimes a creative board is formed, where representatives can brainstorm about future, improvements, rebranding etc. Then, after a little while: SOLD, CLOSED, FIRED, drop the keys here, clean the desk by 10am. No feedback, management is unreachable. Bye. And then it picks up again in 6-12 month.

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I’m definitely worried about investing more time in building out my Unity ML product while Unity are killing unprofitable products and their CEO is ranting about monetisation.

The promise of ‘better communication’ followed by 100% radio silence isn’t doing much to make me less worried.

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Yes. The worst part is this silly silence. Just let us freaking know - bad news or good news its is. So we can plan our future work accordingly.

How hard is it to jump in forum and post a message of truth? Or even create a blog entry on the subject?

This guy “AndrewKemendoWork” seems to have serious memory problems. Giving promises and then just vanishing.

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You got to cut those guys some slack… With a company the size of Unity, it’ll probably take some back and forth until the dust settles and anybody knows anything. I’m sure the team lead would let us know if there was a definitive roadmap for ML-Agents.
Also, it’s not going anywhere. The current release works pretty well and I don’t see a good reason for not using it any longer, even if I knew development is on hold for the time being.

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