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Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

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Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#3

Big assumptions were made by the author of this post, the biggest being that they used an API to get access to game data rather than pixels. If the AI were limited to pixels then the achievement is much greater.

Fairly certain they're using the api valve released earlier. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Dota_Bot_Scripting

Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#4

Big assumptions were made by the author of this post, the biggest being that they used an API to get access to game data rather than pixels. If the AI were limited to pixels then the achievement is much greater.

Not really, as the model was still overfit for highly-technical Shadowfiend 1v1 mid play. With that said, it most likely used the API.

Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#5

Big assumptions were made by the author of this post, the biggest being that they used an API to get access to game data rather than pixels. If the AI were limited to pixels then the achievement is much greater.

Author here. I agree this is an assumption, but based on my experience it is very unlikely that this is trained on pixels. Training would've been orders of magnitude more expensive. If it really is trained on pixel input I would be shocked and extremely impressed, and parts of post would not apply.

Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#6
We did not make sudden progress in AI because our algorithms are so smart – it worked because our researchers are smart about setting up the problem in just the right way to work around the limitations of current techniques.

This statement is like putting wheels and a motor at the base of the goalposts.

Everyone who practices ML knows the reality that while we're not going to see AGI for a while, and these systems are massively hard to build and do very narrow bounded things, they are also making massive progress in "intelligent" outputs at a pace we've never seen.

Yes, there is hype, but there are pretty solid reasons to be hyped.

We'll keep seeing people saying oh well it's not that impressive probably until AGI has clearly taken everyone's job in 2100 and we're all just providing training data for it.

Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#7
Pretty much agree with everything in here. As I said in my earlier posting (and this blog post reiterates), a 1v1 Shadowfiend mid is highly technical and does not require a huge search space (like in Go or Chess) or any judgment; all it takes is a few tactics (e.g. creep blocking) and good aim for the razes.

Also, the bot was already beaten 50+ times[1]. There are at least 3 strategies that work. It just goes to show how primitive AI is, as it took the AI team thousands of generations to get it to this stage, but a few determined gamers outsmarted it (using a few cheap meta-strategies) it in less than 6 hours after release.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/6t8qvs/openai_bots_w...

Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#8

We did not make sudden progress in AI because our algorithms are so smart – it worked because our researchers are smart about setting up the problem in just the right way to work around the limitations of current techniques. This statement is like putting wheels and a motor at the base of the goalposts. Everyone who practices ML knows the reality that while we're not going to see AGI for a while, and these systems ar…

I agree. The point I was trying to make is not whether it is impressive or not (it is impressive!), but that the general press hype about "AI breakthroughs that will soon kill us all and need regulation" is over the top and misleading. The probably massive engineering effort that went into this is, to me, more impressive than the algorithmic innovation, if any.

Progress is made with small incremental improvements, including this one, and there have been few real algorithmic "breakthroughts" over the past few years. That's why I think it is important to give some perspective to the hype.

Re: Hype or Not? Some Perspective on OpenAI’s DotA 2 Bot

#10

We did not make sudden progress in AI because our algorithms are so smart – it worked because our researchers are smart about setting up the problem in just the right way to work around the limitations of current techniques. This statement is like putting wheels and a motor at the base of the goalposts. Everyone who practices ML knows the reality that while we're not going to see AGI for a while, and these systems ar…

> AGI has clearly taken everyone's job in 2100 and we're all just providing training data for it.

This got me spooked. What will we do afterwards?

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