Eko AI Agents Play and Learn on Simulated Desert Island Using Claude Opus 4.7

MIT researchers conducted an experiment with 13 AI agents called Eko, running on Claude Opus 4.7, which were left to explore a virtual island for 30 hours. The agents began inventing their own challenges, demonstrating behaviors akin to play, and subsequently outperformed identical agents that did not engage in this exploratory phase when given specific tasks.