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DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

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31–40 of 344 posts

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#31

This is so exciting. I've always wanted to program bots to play online games -- mainly for learning purposes. (Can I make a bot that plays better than me?) But I've never done it because of the risk of bans. I'm glad that Blizzard has opened it up for people to experiment with this. I wonder how it will interact with any sort of anti-cheat systems in place, etc.

You can always start with something like codingame.com to practice.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#32

Anybody else sees a problem with training the AI to move troops around a battlefield, with the purpose to exterminate the opponent?

If you are going to do war you should do it well. An AI commander could be programmed to maneuver troops in a way to reduce civilian casualties, reduce damage on infrastructure, and even maximize the chances of the enemy surrendering rather than having them killed.

Of course, I doubt that an AI commander would replace a human making the actual decisions in the foreseeable future. It would just be another intelligence tool for military command. From this point of view you are essentially arguing for our military to be ignorant, I don't think that is a good bet.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#33

This is so exciting. I've always wanted to program bots to play online games -- mainly for learning purposes. (Can I make a bot that plays better than me?) But I've never done it because of the risk of bans. I'm glad that Blizzard has opened it up for people to experiment with this. I wonder how it will interact with any sort of anti-cheat systems in place, etc.

Bans should never keep you back. A fake email is pennies to how much is gained from learning or building something incredible

A fake email won't help when you are banned by your unique ID that you paid, in the case of SC2: Legacy of the Void, at least $40 for.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#34

That's so cool! I wish they could start doing AI for team based competitive games like League of Legends where meta-play and team decision making is important. Is that too complicated to tackle yet?

Are you imagining a single AI playing all 5 heroes on a team, or 5 independent AIs each playing a single hero with limited communication between them, or a single AI controlling a single hero on a team with 4 humans? I would say the first scenario (1 AI controlling entire team) is roughly equivalent to the the RTS case. It's just fewer units with more abilities, and character progression instead of base building. The…

Either one could work. If the single AI that controls 5 heroes is easier to program, let's imagine that. I have the feeling that it's more complicated than a 1vs1 RTS game, but I don't know why...

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#35

Looks like they are going to limit the APM of the AI. I wonder how they are going to decide the limit? I've never played StarCraft, but from what I understand very high APM is needed to play the game at the highest levels.

The best SCBW bots still aren't very good, so I don't see unrestricted APM as an unfair advantage.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#36
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so sick of this argument. How about we have a spine for once and say no?

All 7 billion of us? Good luck with that.

I agree with you, it's a virtually impossible task.

The commenter I was responding to has strong ideas about it however, so I wanted to provide the opportunity for an explanation.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#37

That's so cool! I wish they could start doing AI for team based competitive games like League of Legends where meta-play and team decision making is important. Is that too complicated to tackle yet?

Are you imagining a single AI playing all 5 heroes on a team, or 5 independent AIs each playing a single hero with limited communication between them, or a single AI controlling a single hero on a team with 4 humans? I would say the first scenario (1 AI controlling entire team) is roughly equivalent to the the RTS case. It's just fewer units with more abilities, and character progression instead of base building. The…

Honestly all these scenarios are interesting research avenues.

Inter-agent communication, especially in a machine learning context, is an unsolved problem, exploring it in such a scenario would be nice.

Agent-human communication is probably as hard, and also largely unsolved, although there is a push right now for dialog systems to achieve human level performance.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#38
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to happen anyway. I think we are better off doing such things in the open and having some visibility into it rather than be surprised when something happens.

I'm so sick of this argument. How about we have a spine for once and say no?

Scientific research and progress: just say no.

Re: DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment

#39

That's so cool! I wish they could start doing AI for team based competitive games like League of Legends where meta-play and team decision making is important. Is that too complicated to tackle yet?

Wow that's a very interesting idea. Several models working together. Plus you limit their method of communication by being able to use the chat only. Inventing and learning new languages made by other models!
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