6 ms·

Even the 200ms reaction time seemed overly slanted towards the AI. I don't think that is the actual reaction time of top pros, in the matches the AI played the

by jgon 8y ago

Even the 200ms reaction time seemed overly slanted towards the AI. I don't think that is the actual reaction time of top pros, in the matches the AI played the human player would teleport in from complete invisibility and try to use an instant cast spell and the AI would have already teleported out. Yes the theoretically may have been constrained to a 200ms reaction time, but in practice the AI was playing at a superhuman level. Even with that advantage in fights, the human team still demolished the AI. Oh well, lots of things to learn still.

lrem 8y ago
I've recently watched a TED talk explaining how human perception has a lag of about a third of a second. Pro players might be better, but after noticing they also need to take an action.
- neltnerb 8y ago
  My experience is that to beat 300ms requires there to be no conscious thought in the loop. It has to be muscle memory guided by higher level intent. It's like how the gunslinger waiting to shoot hits first, it's reflex instead of decision.
- wnevets 8y ago
  Getting sub 200ms on something like this benchmark is fairly easy [1]. While waiting for the color to change is different than processing a game like dota2 or sc2 a 200ms limit isn't too unreasonable to me. I would love to see these AIs get handicapped even more like a full second and really force them to out think humans. [1] https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime
dx87 8y ago
Another advantage was that the AI is just reading the game state through an API, it doesn't have to look on the screen. The game can be difficult to watch from a pro's perspective since they have to constantly click around the map to see what's happening, but the AI has perfect knowledge of everything it is capable of seeing, all without having to physically move a mouse to click on the screen.
- thomasfortes 8y ago
  Yeah, put an eye tracker in a pro and you'll see that the eyes are constantly changing the focus point, if you can watch the entire scene with the same precision without the need to focus on it you're already at a nice advantage. As an aside, a few pro gamers prefer to play on windowed mode for exactly this reason.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
    Just supporting this. I remember the uproar when 800x600 resolution was removed as an option in SC2 around 2012[1]. [1] https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/6201040181 https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/6201040181
    - rootlocus 8y ago
      > the uproar I'm not saying you're wrong, but 6 posts with no profanity is hardly "uproar" by blizzard forums standards.
- theflork 8y ago
  Is the bit about reading the game through an api true? Earlier iterations of this same rl based agent that played Atari games would read just raw pixels not an api.
  - setr 8y ago
    Any game that is specifically going out of its way to support these ai’s will naturally do it through an api, though I’m only aware of dota2 and sc2 (sc:bw also does, through a community-modified client that serves the api, iirc). For adhoc games, eg atari, pixel-parsing is the natural result, but no one would intentionally set it up like that
  - sytelus 8y ago
    Yes, it’s true. A special PySC interface was created for AI. Also, it’s not only that AI doesn’t need to parse information available on much limited screen real estate but also that AI doesn’t have to use controller that have physical constraints. So AI has access to this super human controller and it can decide to click on one screen extreme and then another within 200ms.
asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
The game is difficult to watch, but does anyone honestly believe that an AI is going to have a difficult time parsing the scene if it is trained to do so? That to me just seems like a question of resources. We're pretty good at image recognition and segmentation now, and that's without the unlimited amounts of training data one could generate when using a controlled game environment with a limited range of possible animations and effects. This is why I find the prospect of the AI agent having to parse the screen entirely uninteresting.
- thomasfortes 8y ago
  But on the other hand, an AI that beats humans using brute force in a game where it makes a ton of difference isn't much fair too.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    The funny thing is that once we're talking about the real world, which will come, that incentive actually reverses. At that point the name of the game will be maximizing the advantage the body/infrastructure provides the AI, not minimizing it. Weird.
    - gowld 8y ago
      It's the same principle as a baseball player putting extra weights on the bat in practice.
    - buchanan 8y ago
      Yes, since DeepMind chose SC2 for having the right characteristics for mapping to the real world, ie imperfect information and real time response, they should have had at least one run without any speed governors. And maybe another with the CPU limited to some level we might find in an embedded system of near future.
  - red75prime 8y ago
    > using brute force "Brute force" in AI context is usually reserved for traversal of the entire search space. I think "superhuman micromanagement" is a better term. And before AlphaStar superhuman micro wasn't insurmountable obstacle for human players.
gsich 8y ago
I think OpenAI would have been by lots of humans, but they decided to train it with 5 unlimited, invulnerable couriers. (until the TI showmatches, in which they were beaten easily.)

by jgon 8y ago

lrem 8y ago

I've recently watched a TED talk explaining how human perception has a lag of about a third of a second. Pro players might be better, but after noticing they also need to take an action.

neltnerb 8y ago
My experience is that to beat 300ms requires there to be no conscious thought in the loop. It has to be muscle memory guided by higher level intent. It's like how the gunslinger waiting to shoot hits first, it's reflex instead of decision.
wnevets 8y ago
Getting sub 200ms on something like this benchmark is fairly easy [1]. While waiting for the color to change is different than processing a game like dota2 or sc2 a 200ms limit isn't too unreasonable to me. I would love to see these AIs get handicapped even more like a full second and really force them to out think humans. [1] https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

dx87 8y ago

Another advantage was that the AI is just reading the game state through an API, it doesn't have to look on the screen. The game can be difficult to watch from a pro's perspective since they have to constantly click around the map to see what's happening, but the AI has perfect knowledge of everything it is capable of seeing, all without having to physically move a mouse to click on the screen.

thomasfortes 8y ago
Yeah, put an eye tracker in a pro and you'll see that the eyes are constantly changing the focus point, if you can watch the entire scene with the same precision without the need to focus on it you're already at a nice advantage. As an aside, a few pro gamers prefer to play on windowed mode for exactly this reason.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
  Just supporting this. I remember the uproar when 800x600 resolution was removed as an option in SC2 around 2012[1]. [1] https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/6201040181 https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/6201040181
  - rootlocus 8y ago
    > the uproar I'm not saying you're wrong, but 6 posts with no profanity is hardly "uproar" by blizzard forums standards.
theflork 8y ago
Is the bit about reading the game through an api true? Earlier iterations of this same rl based agent that played Atari games would read just raw pixels not an api.
- setr 8y ago
  Any game that is specifically going out of its way to support these ai’s will naturally do it through an api, though I’m only aware of dota2 and sc2 (sc:bw also does, through a community-modified client that serves the api, iirc). For adhoc games, eg atari, pixel-parsing is the natural result, but no one would intentionally set it up like that
- sytelus 8y ago
  Yes, it’s true. A special PySC interface was created for AI. Also, it’s not only that AI doesn’t need to parse information available on much limited screen real estate but also that AI doesn’t have to use controller that have physical constraints. So AI has access to this super human controller and it can decide to click on one screen extreme and then another within 200ms.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago

The game is difficult to watch, but does anyone honestly believe that an AI is going to have a difficult time parsing the scene if it is trained to do so? That to me just seems like a question of resources. We're pretty good at image recognition and segmentation now, and that's without the unlimited amounts of training data one could generate when using a controlled game environment with a limited range of possible animations and effects. This is why I find the prospect of the AI agent having to parse the screen entirely uninteresting.

thomasfortes 8y ago
But on the other hand, an AI that beats humans using brute force in a game where it makes a ton of difference isn't much fair too.
- candiodari 8y ago
  The funny thing is that once we're talking about the real world, which will come, that incentive actually reverses. At that point the name of the game will be maximizing the advantage the body/infrastructure provides the AI, not minimizing it. Weird.
  - gowld 8y ago
    It's the same principle as a baseball player putting extra weights on the bat in practice.
  - buchanan 8y ago
    Yes, since DeepMind chose SC2 for having the right characteristics for mapping to the real world, ie imperfect information and real time response, they should have had at least one run without any speed governors. And maybe another with the CPU limited to some level we might find in an embedded system of near future.
- red75prime 8y ago
  > using brute force "Brute force" in AI context is usually reserved for traversal of the entire search space. I think "superhuman micromanagement" is a better term. And before AlphaStar superhuman micro wasn't insurmountable obstacle for human players.

gsich 8y ago

I think OpenAI would have been by lots of humans, but they decided to train it with 5 unlimited, invulnerable couriers. (until the TI showmatches, in which they were beaten easily.)