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

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

#311

Post by taneq »

visarga wrote: post #282
empath75 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you don't imagine robots becoming self aware and deciding to kill humans on their own, you can imagine a fleet of drones and self-driving tanks controlled by a deep learning network. They don't need to understand what they're doing to make effective tactical decisions. If the US doesn't do this, someone else probably will. We're going to see an AI-based blitzkrieg attack in our lifetimes. Once you can launch…

> Once you can launch an invasion without losing any soldiers, war seems like a much less dangerous proposition. Yes, but how can you stop everyone else from doing the same, if the AI part will be trivial to replicate?

Once one group has an AI capable of managing a drone army in near-optimal fashion, there won't be an 'everyone else'.

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

#312

Post by jokermatt999 »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #276
tyrust wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of what that might look like?

Perfect Muta flocks. They regenerate, so the AI just has to keep them alive and do damage to win.

I'm pretty sure Muta flocks were a winning strategy of Starcraft 1's AI tournament, actually, so good call.

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

#313

Post by SoreGums »

visarga wrote: post #279
samstave wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my naive perspective; in GO you do not need to be concerned with resource consumption/mgmt... in Starcraft and other RTS' you do. How much more complexity is added by resource mgmt vs just "legal play possibilities" as now you have "this move isnt legal because you dont have the requisite resource, thus you need to depend on completing those moves first" Are there any efforts applying deepmind to, say, commoditi…

> Supply chains for complex hardware manufacturing logistics? That would go well with the concept of Seed Factory, which is a factory that could reproduce itself, from raw materials. If we can build a self replicating device, we will reach another kind of singularity. At the moment, the whole human race is such a self replicating system, but if we can take humans out of the loop we could ship it to an undeveloped are…

This is what I'm looking forward to with AI. With humans we tend to If This Than That and be methodical. AI on the other hand given enough processing power does everything at once and is omnipresent. Movies like iRobot kind of point to this, still in that movie there was a linear progression on the part of the AI side.

There is a massive advantage to seeing everything all the time and being able to arrange and organise everything at the same time.

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

#314

Post by ctlaltdefeat »

rfrank wrote: post #209
theptip wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that micro is a big advantage that AIs have held in previous AI vs. Human StarCraft contests, but the OP stated that the SC2 research environment will limit the AI to (elite) human APM levels, so that edge will be somewhat blunted. It's probably fair to question whether all actions are counted equally; I could believe that an AI could allocate their action budget more widely than a human can, even while hittin…

When I was playing SC2 frequently a few years ago, someone made a program that used genetic algorithms to construct build orders [1]. It would produce a build that technically worked, but in a lot of cases they weren't very viable. I tried to make a blink stalker rush that'd be the rough equivalent of the build shown in the post liked above, just with the Protoss race in the game. The program would tell me to do thin…

I remember that program! Interesting though that my experience with it was different; I recall that letting it run for enough time it was able to come up with viable and often quite efficient build orders. By the way, I do seem to remember that putting 2 probes on an extractor was slightly more efficient (per probe) than 3 :)

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

#315

Post by vladimirralev »

stale2002 wrote: post #247
vladimirralev wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will not get to strategy in these games at all. I can already see the AI dominating any human player just by splitting army. Imagine a terran AI dropping at 4+ places at the same time, just 4-5 marines each. This can be done within the first 6-7 minutes and no human player will be able to hold. I know they limit the APM for AI but you can easily do such drop with very few APM if you simply react fast enough on dam…

This is not as big of a deal you you think it is. Starcraft 2 custom AIs already exist and have existed for a long time. And they are really bad.

They are bad mostly because they try to not be obvious so that Blizzard would ban them. High APM, precision clicks without camera move or unnatural multitasking gets you reported and banned fast these days. Could be because of other things but there seems to be a lot less cheating recently.

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

#316

Post by golergka »

formula1 wrote: post #15

I suspect this will eventually lead to AI as a service for games. Rather than build a terrible AI that delays a game by months, approaching a company that can build a decent AI initially which gets better overtime would probably be ideal and create better experiences. Im curious if a startup can be built from this.

Most games don't need this. Smoke and mirrors work a lot better than honest AI to create an illusion of intelligence, and it's much easier to change game mechanics and balance with a simpler AI.

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

#317

Post by ktRolster »

rfrank wrote: post #209
theptip wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that micro is a big advantage that AIs have held in previous AI vs. Human StarCraft contests, but the OP stated that the SC2 research environment will limit the AI to (elite) human APM levels, so that edge will be somewhat blunted. It's probably fair to question whether all actions are counted equally; I could believe that an AI could allocate their action budget more widely than a human can, even while hittin…

When I was playing SC2 frequently a few years ago, someone made a program that used genetic algorithms to construct build orders [1]. It would produce a build that technically worked, but in a lot of cases they weren't very viable. I tried to make a blink stalker rush that'd be the rough equivalent of the build shown in the post liked above, just with the Protoss race in the game. The program would tell me to do thin…

The program would tell me to do things like make two extractors but put fewer than necessary probes on them, pull probes to extractors after X trips or at X time (can't remember which),

Pros actually do both of those things.

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

#318

Post by ethbro »

halflings wrote: post #305
tempestn wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. As I said, > Your parent post appears to suggest mitigating these other advantages in various ways (although I don't personally agree with that approach, since the computer isn't doing something that's out of reach for humans, just things that aren't practical for humans to achieve consistently). As far as your last paragraph, I suspect the issue is that people building AIs generally try to follow t…

I don't think it's as easy as that. Even with perfect macro + micro, your opponent could simply scout you, see what build you're going for, and counter your build. Pro players do have (quasi-)perfect macro: They build units and buildings exactly when they should be built (especially at the early stages of the game). They also have an excellent micro. What makes one player win against the other is often the choices th…

This is one thing that I think would be fascinating when (if) we get to a competitive AI in this arena.

Do we eventually see the hypothetical human (or AI!) opponent trying to metagame against the way an AI system interacts with the game? E.g. human-pointless feints in an attempt to pollute AI logic?

Under the premise that a competitive AI will reason and act differently than a competitive human (due to aforementioned difference in speed/memory vs abstract thinking resources).

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

#319

Post by ethbro »

otempomores wrote: post #296
pavel_lishin wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nice illustration of the potential battlefield of tomorrow.

Privat third in first row you ve been ai selected to draw splash damage for king and cuntry. Everybody else give him some privacy

That sounds not unlike some of the battlefield reasoning Morgan puts in the post-cyberpunk Takeshi Kovacs series.

Winning against AI in a sufficiently complex game looks very different than winning against a human.

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

#320

Post by rfrank »

ctlaltdefeat wrote: post #314
rfrank wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was playing SC2 frequently a few years ago, someone made a program that used genetic algorithms to construct build orders [1]. It would produce a build that technically worked, but in a lot of cases they weren't very viable. I tried to make a blink stalker rush that'd be the rough equivalent of the build shown in the post liked above, just with the Protoss race in the game. The program would tell me to do thin…

I remember that program! Interesting though that my experience with it was different; I recall that letting it run for enough time it was able to come up with viable and often quite efficient build orders. By the way, I do seem to remember that putting 2 probes on an extractor was slightly more efficient (per probe) than 3 :)

Part of my problem was definitely what I was asking it to do. Going after blink so fast left me open to faster all ins like 2rax/2gate, 6 pools, etc. Being slightly slower than a 4gate and with more tech investment puts you even further behind if you can't do damage with the push. A better way to phrase it might be that the build worked, just not in the context of the metagame at the time.

I had to look it up again to be sure, but 2 on minerals 3 on gas haha: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/140055-scientif...

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