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I'm almost entirely ignorant of DOTA 2, but the coverage suggests to me that it is winning mainly through what I would call "micro" excellence (firing at just t

by _dps 9y ago

I'm almost entirely ignorant of DOTA 2, but the coverage suggests to me that it is winning mainly through what I would call "micro" excellence (firing at just the right range, careful maneuvering, and so on). It's clear that this kind of precision control is extremely advantaged by having direct access to the state of the game, rather than having to estimate it in real-time from vision data. So, to me, based purely on the news coverage, it's not clear that it has learned anything like "superhuman" levels of strategy. We already know that computers have superhuman reaction times and precision calculation abilities, so it seems to me the interesting question is whether an advantage would remain after factoring those out.

doikor 9y ago
> it is winning mainly through what I would call "micro" excellence This is partly it. From the interviews with the pros it mostly close to perfect micro, calculating results very well (it knows when it will win the 3 raze spam + 2 autoattacks with 2hp left and thus wins the match etc. for a human that would be hard to calculate) and due to those two it punishes every small mistake the human player makes very hard. From the actual thinking parts it had to learn creep control (pushing too far just gives free exp/last hits to the other player etc.) and itemization (what counters what, when to get ward etc.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
hobofan 9y ago
I agree. I don't think there was anything too novel in there, but it is a necessary foundation they need before advancing on to the strategy part, or they would just be out-microed there. I think there a little bit of strategy already in there since it learned about positioning, and not exposing itself too much (which is of course easier without fog of war). The only thing I was excited to see was the creep blocking, but the chance that this would turn out to be hand-trained was pretty high.
skgoa 9y ago
As someone who plays dota, this bot really isn't that impressive. The hero they chose is seen as a very difficult one to master for humans, precisely because judging distances, current life, current mana, damage etc. is so difficult to do on the fly and even if you can keep track of all of that in your head, you need extremely precise inputs to outplay your opponent. Yet by going through the API, they handed all of that to their bot on a silver platter. They pretty much let the bot sidestep the core challenge of this hero, while it was kept in place for the human players. On top of that they also reduced the complexity of the game quite significantly by limiting items etc., which further reduced what humans could do against the bot. Even then, the bot utterly failed once humans were allowed to use a tiny bit of creativity. And that's not even taking into account that this was not even close to the complexity of a real dota match. The big challenge in dota is in the decision making with incomplete information and in coordinating 5 people with only voice and the ability to ping the mini map, in a giant "search space" created by hundreds of different heroes, items and game mechanic interactions.
- mabramo 9y ago
  In terms of Dota, I don't think it's that impressive, but it is still cool. I'll be impressed when I see a 5v5 with bots that adapt to the opponents' strategy. I do think that it currently could be an excellent tool for mid-laners and cores to practice. OpenAI is also blowing the door open to Dota AI development and we will soon see bot tournaments. Engineers will develop AI and put them against one another in standard 5v5 matches with a pick/ban phase and all. In terms of AI, I don't /think/ there's anything groundbreaking here. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't follow AI research, but this technology is nothing we haven't already seen. I believe the development of AI for Dota is a publicity move to get people excited about what AI could be for humanity. This might be the way to introduce AI to non-technologists and get people excited about it.
  - quiteawhile 9y ago
    > This might be the way to introduce AI to non-technologists and get people excited about it. Yeah, I'm almost positive that this exhibition is intended mostly to raise awareness and create this hype. Go and Chess, for most people, are simple games compared to Dota2, so if Elon is worried about AI and want people to be more aware of the threat he perceives it certainly helps to make this big show and get all those impressions with a game that is considered by the majority of people (especially younger) to be more complex/harder than what has been done before.
grimskin 9y ago
> it's not clear that it has learned anything like "superhuman" levels of strategy But still, it's learned "human" levels of strategy, and that actually amazing. And let's not forget, that this is only beginning, more stuff to come. IIRC - some third-party StarCraft AI actually invented a trick that was later used by human players on pro-level tournaments.
- GenKali 9y ago
  Indeed - I believe it was a highly successful build order that strayed from the 'norm' at the time. I was quite into SC2 at the time and this was something of a big deal.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    It was the 7 roach rush. Used extractor trick which was generally considered a bad idea by humans due to being economically bad as well as a double overlord which is also against general build principles, but it turned out that it smoothed into an insanely efficient early attack.
jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
> winning mainly through what I would call "micro" excellence This certainly is an advantage for the bot. But it's also clear the bot understands some sophisticated parts of dota. It understands how to control the creep equilibrium via the aggro mechanics. Skill at this is one of the things that separates pros from casual dota players. In the video footage you can see sumail and rtz are surprised by this aspect of the bot. It also understands how to cancel salves as well as bait with them. That's all pretty impressive for a bot trained up from self play.

by _dps 9y ago

doikor 9y ago

> it is winning mainly through what I would call "micro" excellence This is partly it. From the interviews with the pros it mostly close to perfect micro, calculating results very well (it knows when it will win the 3 raze spam + 2 autoattacks with 2hp left and thus wins the match etc. for a human that would be hard to calculate) and due to those two it punishes every small mistake the human player makes very hard. From the actual thinking parts it had to learn creep control (pushing too far just gives free exp/last hits to the other player etc.) and itemization (what counters what, when to get ward etc.)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

hobofan 9y ago

I agree. I don't think there was anything too novel in there, but it is a necessary foundation they need before advancing on to the strategy part, or they would just be out-microed there. I think there a little bit of strategy already in there since it learned about positioning, and not exposing itself too much (which is of course easier without fog of war). The only thing I was excited to see was the creep blocking, but the chance that this would turn out to be hand-trained was pretty high.

skgoa 9y ago

As someone who plays dota, this bot really isn't that impressive. The hero they chose is seen as a very difficult one to master for humans, precisely because judging distances, current life, current mana, damage etc. is so difficult to do on the fly and even if you can keep track of all of that in your head, you need extremely precise inputs to outplay your opponent. Yet by going through the API, they handed all of that to their bot on a silver platter. They pretty much let the bot sidestep the core challenge of this hero, while it was kept in place for the human players. On top of that they also reduced the complexity of the game quite significantly by limiting items etc., which further reduced what humans could do against the bot. Even then, the bot utterly failed once humans were allowed to use a tiny bit of creativity. And that's not even taking into account that this was not even close to the complexity of a real dota match. The big challenge in dota is in the decision making with incomplete information and in coordinating 5 people with only voice and the ability to ping the mini map, in a giant "search space" created by hundreds of different heroes, items and game mechanic interactions.

mabramo 9y ago
In terms of Dota, I don't think it's that impressive, but it is still cool. I'll be impressed when I see a 5v5 with bots that adapt to the opponents' strategy. I do think that it currently could be an excellent tool for mid-laners and cores to practice. OpenAI is also blowing the door open to Dota AI development and we will soon see bot tournaments. Engineers will develop AI and put them against one another in standard 5v5 matches with a pick/ban phase and all. In terms of AI, I don't /think/ there's anything groundbreaking here. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't follow AI research, but this technology is nothing we haven't already seen. I believe the development of AI for Dota is a publicity move to get people excited about what AI could be for humanity. This might be the way to introduce AI to non-technologists and get people excited about it.
- quiteawhile 9y ago
  > This might be the way to introduce AI to non-technologists and get people excited about it. Yeah, I'm almost positive that this exhibition is intended mostly to raise awareness and create this hype. Go and Chess, for most people, are simple games compared to Dota2, so if Elon is worried about AI and want people to be more aware of the threat he perceives it certainly helps to make this big show and get all those impressions with a game that is considered by the majority of people (especially younger) to be more complex/harder than what has been done before.

grimskin 9y ago

> it's not clear that it has learned anything like "superhuman" levels of strategy But still, it's learned "human" levels of strategy, and that actually amazing. And let's not forget, that this is only beginning, more stuff to come. IIRC - some third-party StarCraft AI actually invented a trick that was later used by human players on pro-level tournaments.

GenKali 9y ago
Indeed - I believe it was a highly successful build order that strayed from the 'norm' at the time. I was quite into SC2 at the time and this was something of a big deal.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  It was the 7 roach rush. Used extractor trick which was generally considered a bad idea by humans due to being economically bad as well as a double overlord which is also against general build principles, but it turned out that it smoothed into an insanely efficient early attack.

jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago

> winning mainly through what I would call "micro" excellence This certainly is an advantage for the bot. But it's also clear the bot understands some sophisticated parts of dota. It understands how to control the creep equilibrium via the aggro mechanics. Skill at this is one of the things that separates pros from casual dota players. In the video footage you can see sumail and rtz are surprised by this aspect of the bot. It also understands how to cancel salves as well as bait with them. That's all pretty impressive for a bot trained up from self play.