You’ve seen artificial intelligence beat the world’s best Go players and now an AI-powered bot has beaten the world’s best Dota 2 players. During Valve’s yearly Dota 2 tournament there was a surprise segment which introduced the AI-powered bot from OpenAI, an artificial intelligence startup backed by Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk.
OpenAI engineers say that the bot learned fast enough in two weeks to beat the world’s best Dota 2 players. In this training period, the engineers say their bot amassed “lifetimes” of experience.
Musk obviously talked about this achievement on twitter. Pointing out that the OpenAI bot is the first ever to defeat the world’s best players in competitive eSports, he also mentioned that Dota 2 is “vastly more complex” than traditional board games like Chess and Go.
The demonstration was limited to a few variables of gameplay, nevertheless, the crowd was excited to see Dota 2 professional Danylo “Dendi” Ishutin being beaten badly by the bot in the live 1-vs-1 match.
Ishutin lost twice matches in succession to the bot and forgeited future matches to it. He was a bit surprised to see that the bot could perform at a level comparable to that of a human. He said that the bot “feels a little like human, but a little like something else.”
OpenAI engineers now want to work on expanding the bot’s capabilities so that it can compete across the entire game in a 5-vs-5 match by next year.
OpenAI first ever to defeat world's best players in competitive eSports. Vastly more complex than traditional board games like chess & Go.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017