There is the popular saying, “Practice makes perfect”. The principle behind it is that the more you work on something, in theory you should get better at it. This principle was put to the test when Google’s DeepMind AI trained to beat some of the world’s top StarCraft 2 pros, which they successfully did by winning 10-1.
The games were played against StarCraft 2 pros TLO and MaNa, where each pro played five games against the AI. We had previously heard that DeepMind wanted to test their AI by playing against StarCraft 2 pros, and these results seem to prove that the AI has what it takes. However as noted by Engadget, DeepMind did not have the benefits you might expect from AI.
It actually had a lower APM compared to the pros, and also had a slower reaction time of about 350 milliseconds which is slower than what most pros have. However its wins seem to prove that having a good strategy and using its time and resources efficiently trumps speed. The AI also trained by playing 200 years worth of StarCraft 2, which like we said lends credence to the saying, “Practice makes perfect”.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen AI go up against human players. Earlier Elon Musk’s OpenAI took on DotA 2 professionals and won.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Blizzard, Deepmind, Google and Starcraft.