0

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Dota is a game of prediction, strategy and collaboration, and it’s been long thought that an AI couldn’t master it – until now.

 

A lot of humans think they’re so good at video games that they make the point of describing themselves as “gamers.” Well, the Artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed by OpenAI, which is a company backed by Elon Musk, would like to have a word, humans. After demonstrating its prowess in Dota 2 1v1 games, the newly enhanced “OpenAI Five” has shown that it can thrash even the best human teams. OpenAI challenged five of the world’s best pro Dota 2 players, and the AI won handily.

 

RELATED
Google Earth's new upgrade is a 37 year timelapse of the entire Earth

 

You might remember OpenAI popping up in the news a number of times recently when they developed an AI that evolved by itself to self-learn, and an AI powered robot hand that’s as dextrous as a humans. The OpenAI Dota bot gets better by playing games against itself at high-speed. Using a massively scaled-up version of “Proximal Policy Optimization,” which is a training system designed for OpenAI’s successful 1v1 Dota 2 bot. OpenAI Five plays the game for a whopping 180 years every single day thanks to 256 GPUs and 128,000 CPU cores in the Google Compute Cloud.

 

Watch the Bot plan ahead

 

The exhibition match was streamed live on Twitch and featured noted Dota 2 players Blitz, Cap, Fogged, Merlini, and MoonMeander. These are all people who currently or previously play Dota 2 professionally — they’re in the 99.95th percentile of human players. There were a few restrictions to drop features the bots hadn’t yet learned to use, but OpenAI was able to reinstate some previously blocked aspects like wards and Roshan (a powerful neutral creep that can be farmed for XP gains).

 

RELATED
The DeepFake tech behind David Beckham's viral malaria campaign explained

 

In the first match, the AI steamrolled the humans in just 21 minutes. That’s considered quite fast for a game of Dota 2, and the AI was confident. It predicted a 95 percent win probability after seeing the hero teams. In game two, the AI wasn’t as confident, giving itself a 76 percent chance to win. It still pummeled the human team in just 25 minutes.

 

Watch the bot predict the game

 

It was a best-out-of-three event, so the AI had already won when round three came along. For this match, the audience was allowed to choose heroes for OpenAI Five. Heroes in Dota 2 often interact in complex ways. Without the ability to build a team it knew how to play, the AI was at a disadvantage. It predicted a 17 percent win chance, and indeed it lost after a healthy 35-minute battle.

A few years ago, many researchers thought it was impossible for AI systems to get so good at complex team-based games like Dota 2, but here we are. The best gamers in the world are machines.

About author

Matthew Griffin

Matthew Griffin, described as “The Adviser behind the Advisers” and a “Young Kurzweil,” is the founder and CEO of the World Futures Forum and the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures consultancy working between the dates of 2020 to 2070, and is an award winning futurist, and author of “Codex of the Future” series. Regularly featured in the global media, including AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, RT, Viacom, and WIRED, Matthew’s ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of revolutionary emerging technologies on global culture, industry and society, is unparalleled. Recognised for the past six years as one of the world’s foremost futurists, innovation and strategy experts Matthew is an international speaker who helps governments, investors, multi-nationals and regulators around the world envision, build and lead an inclusive, sustainable future. A rare talent Matthew’s recent work includes mentoring Lunar XPrize teams, re-envisioning global education and training with the G20, and helping the world’s largest organisations envision and ideate the future of their products and services, industries, and countries. Matthew's clients include three Prime Ministers and several governments, including the G7, Accenture, Aon, Bain & Co, BCG, Credit Suisse, Dell EMC, Dentons, Deloitte, E&Y, GEMS, Huawei, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, Lego, McKinsey, PWC, Qualcomm, SAP, Samsung, Sopra Steria, T-Mobile, and many more.

Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *