Not content with AIs beating human players on games like Go, Elon Musk-backed OpenAI is now beating the best Dota 2 players.
The AI faced three of the best Dota 2 players in the world at the championships in the US and beat them all. It even learned the game from scratch using the old adage of “try, try, and try again.”
Some players of the eSports hit put in grueling hours of training for a chance to receive the increasingly large winnings on offer at some events. That means little to an AI, however, and it only cares about the glory.
The makers claim the goal ultimately is not just to win games and make human players look foolish, but to improve decision making.
“This is a step towards building AI systems which accomplish well-defined goals in messy, complicated situations involving real humans,” say the OpenAI engineers.
Should we bow to our AI overlords?
While the current crop of Dota 2 players appear unable to beat the AI, with enough commitment the creators believe it’s possible. The AI bots are not better in terms of actions-per-minute, but rather in their ability to make smarter decisions.
OpenAI can beat regular Dota 2 players in the space of an hour (which means it could learn to beat me in 30 minutes.) It takes approximately two weeks for the AI to beat the best Dota 2 players in the scene.
The AI wasn’t flawless, however. During subsequent tests against other attendees at the championship, some players were able to confuse the bot and distract it from the main objectives. Keep that in mind for the prophesied AIpocalypse.
Are you impressed with the decision-making of AIs such as OpenAI? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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