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Blizzard and DeepMind Turn StarCraft II Into An AI Research Lab (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the humans-vs-machines dept.

Last year, Google's AI subsidiary DeepMind said it was going to work with Starcraft creator Blizzard to turn the strategy game into a proper research environment for AI engineers. Today, they're opening the doors to that environment, with new tools including a machine learning API, a large game replay dataset, an open source DeepMind toolset and more. TechCrunch reports: The new release of the StarCraft II API on the Blizzard side includes a Linux package made to be able to run in the cloud, as well as support for Windows and Mac. It also has support for offline AI vs. AI matches, and those anonymized game replays from actual human players for training up agents, which is starting out at 65,000 complete matches, and will grow to over 500,000 over the course of the next few weeks. StarCraft II is such a useful environment for AI research basically because of how complex and varied the games can be, with multiple open routes to victory for each individual match. Players also have to do many different things simultaneously, including managing and generating resources, as well as commanding military units and deploying defensive structures. Plus, not all information about the game board is available at once, meaning players have to make assumptions and predictions about what the opposition is up to.

It's such a big task, in fact, that DeepMind and Blizzard are including "mini-games" in the release, which break down different subtasks into "manageable chunks," including teaching agents to master tasks like building specific units, gathering resources, or moving around the map. The hope is that compartmentalizing these areas of play will allow testing and comparison of techniques from different researchers on each, along with refinement, before their eventual combination in complex agents that attempt to master the whole game.

6 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Working backwards by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Assuming you could create some AIs that are really, really good at an RTS like SC2, I wonder if you could get them to work backwards to create (or just adjust existing) games that are more balanced as one of the major complaints about any RTS game is its balance.

    1. Re: Working backwards by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      To some degree you'd want a game that is balanced at both 30 and 300 APM (actions per minute for those unfamiliar with the term) because it's going to be played at both of those levels. Sure a 300 APM player is going to beat someone who has 30 APM assuming they're not just spamming nonsense actions that don't do anything, but that's okay. A tennis player who can serve ten times faster than another will probably win as well.

      What you'd want to do is look at how the effectiveness of a unit (or rather a control group, or even better multiple groups) scales with increases in APM and where there are spikes and valleys. For example, you don't need to have incredible APM to pull off siege tank strategies and I suspect that once you hit a certain amount, adding another 100 APM doesn't net drastically better results. It's okay for stuff like that to exist but ideally is also has some counters that can be executed that don't require drastically more APM or you end up with some very stale matches for players in that range or a rush to develop strategies to end the game (or severely disadvantage the opponent) before it reaches the siege tank push timing.

      If they AI can't find any good approaches, it probably means that a unit needs to be tuned downward or for something else that's underperforming to be given a buff in the form of making it a counter to a unit that's overly strong.

  2. We all know the next logical step.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... from controlling units in a RTS to controlling drones in the field of war.

    Personally I welcome our robotic overlords

  3. Is this about Koreans? by clovis · · Score: 2

    Have we found, at long last, a possible way to beat the Koreans at StarCraft?
    If so, will this Make America Great Again?

  4. Re:Still Play, Not a Gamer by LesFerg · · Score: 2

    It takes a bit of talking at the EBGames store before the young ones realize I'm not there to buy something for a grandchild.

    --
    If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
  5. can it play global thermonuclear war? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    can it play global thermonuclear war?