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StarCraft is built in such a way that you can't create a perfect, 100% winrate agent. Since there is hidden information, you could always miss a corner of the

StarCraft is built in such a way that you can't create a perfect, 100% winrate agent. Since there is hidden information, you could always miss a corner of the map where the enemy hidden some units and you lose the game. Is Alphastar "perfect"? no. Is it better than 99.9% of all humans? absolutely. You don't need to create a perfect agent in most cases, self driving a classic example. If you were to deploy an agent that drives 95% better than all humans the effects would be huge. It would still fail in some scenarios where professional drivers won't be it doesn't really matter because most people are not that.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
I know the bot will never have 100% winrate, but I think it shouldn't be able to be exploited (I.e. repeatedly beaten using the same strategy). Let me give you an example [0]. When AlphaStar was playing on the ladder a player in Diamond league (~70-80th percentile) beat AlphaStar easily using mass Ravens. If you're not aware of the strategy, it's a turtle strategy where the player masses air units and is generally terrible. But AlphaStar was confused by the strategy, and so it lost by a large margin. Deploying an AI which can be exploited like this is asking for trouble. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/cgzieq/alphastar_loses_to_4000_mmr_first_loss_as_terran/ https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/cgzieq/alphastar...
- CyberRage 6y ago
  But that could be fixed technically. Deepmind's goal was not to create an "unexploitable" agent but to prove that ML algorithms can cope with complex, dynamic environments such as StarCraft. It seems to you weird but the same agent probably wins against GM's most of the time. humans have weaknesses too. The AI simply leans on its strengths just like humans do.
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    > It seems to you weird but the same agent probably wins against GM's most of the time. humans have weaknesses too This is the whole problem though. AlphaStar beats GMs but can lose to weird strategies. On the other hand, GMs will almost never lose (Most likely >99% winrate) to a Diamond player no matter how weird their strategies are. The AI has strengths, but it also has glaring weaknesses. Imagine if you had an AI flying a plane and 99% of the time it was far better than a human pilot but 1% of the time it crashed and killed everyone. I would not fly on that plane. Maybe a bunch more training data and time would solve this type of problem, but I'm skeptical.
    - CyberRage 6y ago
      You're beautifully showing the human nature which can be problematic in my opinion. First of, no human player achieves 99% winrate against diamond players. there are many cheeses, one miss-step and you lose. GM's can lose to Diamond players. Now for the main part, you're saying and I'm rephrasing here: Even if the AI is statistically better than humans because it has some weaknesses I'm going to prefer the human. But still at the end of the day, the AI does a better job on average and will be safer to use than human pilots! We already heavily rely on software\algorithms for our most important things. all modern vehicles use electronic systems that monitor\manage several key components, stock market is heavily managed by bots. If AI can do a significantly better job than human, I would choose the AI, even if it behaves strange in that 0.1% of cases. humans are not as reliable as you think.
      - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
        > First of, no human player achieves 99% winrate against diamond players. there are many cheeses, one miss-step and you lose. GM's can lose to Diamond players They definitely would. You underestimate the difference in skill. Top players almost always beat other GM players and maintain very high winrates in top GM. See for yourself: https://www.nephest.com/sc2/?season=46&queue=LOTV_1V1&team-type=ARRANGED&us=true&eu=true&kr=true&cn=true&bro=true&sil=true&gol=true&pla=true&dia=true&mas=true&gra=true&page=0&type=ladder&ratingAnchor=99999&idAnchor=0&count=1#ladder-top https://www.nephest.com/sc2/?season=46&queue=LOTV_1V1&team-t... > But still at the end of the day, the AI does a better job on average and will be safer to use than human pilots! I agree, but only if that 1% or 0.1% or whatever is not exploitable by someone malicious.
        CyberRage 6y ago
        The link includes players with vastly lower winrate and players with high winrates but for extremely low number of games. We need sufficient quantities to claim 99% winrate, for highly ranked players even with 200 games(which is still a low number since a single loss can massively affect results) are not even close to 80% winrate. probably with enough games it will be even lower. Maintaining 99% winrate is extremely hard as you can only lose a single game out of 100. people get tired, try new stuff, simply don't pay attention or just get caught off guard by a new thing. As for "malicious exploitation", it does poses a risk in some environments but the question then becomes exactly the same. Is the AI less exploitable than the average person? If so, it doesn't matter.
  - neatze 6y ago
    It is false that AlphaStar learns like humans do.
- neatze 6y ago
  by any chance, do you know replay ID of this game ?
  - CyberRage 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-yRj6TIK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-yRj6TIK8
Dylan16807 6y ago
> StarCraft is built in such a way that you can't create a perfect, 100% winrate agent. The worry isn't about perfect winrate, it's about finding strategies that can consistently cause the AI to lose over and over. In a cooperative environment, a high percentage is great. In a competitive environment, that .1% of scenarios where it's really weak will suddenly become the majority of games it faces.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

I know the bot will never have 100% winrate, but I think it shouldn't be able to be exploited (I.e. repeatedly beaten using the same strategy). Let me give you an example [0]. When AlphaStar was playing on the ladder a player in Diamond league (~70-80th percentile) beat AlphaStar easily using mass Ravens. If you're not aware of the strategy, it's a turtle strategy where the player masses air units and is generally terrible. But AlphaStar was confused by the strategy, and so it lost by a large margin. Deploying an AI which can be exploited like this is asking for trouble. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/cgzieq/alphastar_loses_to_4000_mmr_first_loss_as_terran/ https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/cgzieq/alphastar...

CyberRage 6y ago
But that could be fixed technically. Deepmind's goal was not to create an "unexploitable" agent but to prove that ML algorithms can cope with complex, dynamic environments such as StarCraft. It seems to you weird but the same agent probably wins against GM's most of the time. humans have weaknesses too. The AI simply leans on its strengths just like humans do.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  > It seems to you weird but the same agent probably wins against GM's most of the time. humans have weaknesses too This is the whole problem though. AlphaStar beats GMs but can lose to weird strategies. On the other hand, GMs will almost never lose (Most likely >99% winrate) to a Diamond player no matter how weird their strategies are. The AI has strengths, but it also has glaring weaknesses. Imagine if you had an AI flying a plane and 99% of the time it was far better than a human pilot but 1% of the time it crashed and killed everyone. I would not fly on that plane. Maybe a bunch more training data and time would solve this type of problem, but I'm skeptical.
  - CyberRage 6y ago
    You're beautifully showing the human nature which can be problematic in my opinion. First of, no human player achieves 99% winrate against diamond players. there are many cheeses, one miss-step and you lose. GM's can lose to Diamond players. Now for the main part, you're saying and I'm rephrasing here: Even if the AI is statistically better than humans because it has some weaknesses I'm going to prefer the human. But still at the end of the day, the AI does a better job on average and will be safer to use than human pilots! We already heavily rely on software\algorithms for our most important things. all modern vehicles use electronic systems that monitor\manage several key components, stock market is heavily managed by bots. If AI can do a significantly better job than human, I would choose the AI, even if it behaves strange in that 0.1% of cases. humans are not as reliable as you think.
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      > First of, no human player achieves 99% winrate against diamond players. there are many cheeses, one miss-step and you lose. GM's can lose to Diamond players They definitely would. You underestimate the difference in skill. Top players almost always beat other GM players and maintain very high winrates in top GM. See for yourself: https://www.nephest.com/sc2/?season=46&queue=LOTV_1V1&team-type=ARRANGED&us=true&eu=true&kr=true&cn=true&bro=true&sil=true&gol=true&pla=true&dia=true&mas=true&gra=true&page=0&type=ladder&ratingAnchor=99999&idAnchor=0&count=1#ladder-top https://www.nephest.com/sc2/?season=46&queue=LOTV_1V1&team-t... > But still at the end of the day, the AI does a better job on average and will be safer to use than human pilots! I agree, but only if that 1% or 0.1% or whatever is not exploitable by someone malicious.
      - CyberRage 6y ago
        The link includes players with vastly lower winrate and players with high winrates but for extremely low number of games. We need sufficient quantities to claim 99% winrate, for highly ranked players even with 200 games(which is still a low number since a single loss can massively affect results) are not even close to 80% winrate. probably with enough games it will be even lower. Maintaining 99% winrate is extremely hard as you can only lose a single game out of 100. people get tired, try new stuff, simply don't pay attention or just get caught off guard by a new thing. As for "malicious exploitation", it does poses a risk in some environments but the question then becomes exactly the same. Is the AI less exploitable than the average person? If so, it doesn't matter.
- neatze 6y ago
  It is false that AlphaStar learns like humans do.
neatze 6y ago
by any chance, do you know replay ID of this game ?
- CyberRage 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-yRj6TIK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-yRj6TIK8

Dylan16807 6y ago

> StarCraft is built in such a way that you can't create a perfect, 100% winrate agent. The worry isn't about perfect winrate, it's about finding strategies that can consistently cause the AI to lose over and over. In a cooperative environment, a high percentage is great. In a competitive environment, that .1% of scenarios where it's really weak will suddenly become the majority of games it faces.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]