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DeepMind's AI Agents Exceed 'Human-Level' Gameplay In Quake III (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: AI agents continue to rack up wins in the video game world. Last week, OpenAI's bots were playing Dota 2; this week, it's Quake III, with a team of researchers from Google's DeepMind subsidiary successfully training agents that can beat humans at a game of capture the flag. DeepMind's researchers used a method of AI training that's also becoming standard: reinforcement learning, which is basically training by trial and error at a huge scale. Agents are given no instructions on how to play the game, but simply compete against themselves until they work out the strategies needed to win. Usually this means one version of the AI agent playing against an identical clone. DeepMind gave extra depth to this formula by training a whole cohort of 30 agents to introduce a "diversity" of play styles. How many games does it take to train an AI this way? Nearly half a million, each lasting five minutes. DeepMind's agents not only learned the basic rules of capture the flag, but strategies like guarding your own flag, camping at your opponent's base, and following teammates around so you can gang up on the enemy. "[T]he bot-only teams were most successful, with a 74 percent win probability," reports The Verge. "This compared to 43 percent probability for average human players, and 52 percent probability for strong human players. So: clearly the AI agents are the better players."
I'm sure aimbotting & instantaneous team communication had nothing to do with their success.
But that's a skill-based game, as opposed to strategy or anything needing intelligence. "Skill" as in reaction time to seeing an opponent and successfully moving clicking the mouse of their head. Give me a couple minutes and I can script up a bot that dominates players. That's not hard. And it's not even fun.
To have a real comparison, you'd have to let humans play with cheat-codes. Aim-bots and enemy highlighters. Maybe set it to ultra-slow, or add in bullet-time or something. But at that point, you're no longer playing Quake.
The part where it learned the interface, the objectives, and some strategies on it's own are fun and interesting. The sort of thing I'd expect from an undergrad in comSci. But it's been done and it's not any more impressive than having it learn how to beat MarioBros.
Chess and Go are games that require thought. Quake require twitch.
Give the humans aimbot program then see how well the computer can compete
... we will be hunted to extinction by packs of weaponized roombas.
Agents are given no instructions on how to play the game, but simply compete against themselves until they work out the strategies needed to win
Well, obviously they are given instructions on the criteria for winning. Your AI from Mars; how would it even get to assume what it means to win?
But that's a nitpick; the real dippy thing is that these headlines are like "a Ford beats a man in a foot race", "a Chevy beats a man in a foot race", etc.
While I'm impressed with the "learning" aspect, humans have no chance in such games against "Head shot!" "Head shot!" "Head shot!"
I have a hard time carrying if an AI can beat me in a game unless its an AI that receives its video feed over camera feeds of the game play and then mechanically moves the mouse and keyboard to play. Maybe they are frame scanning directly to the AI, but still need to simulate input delays with more then a stochastic timer.
However, it’s worth noting that the greater the number of DeepMind bots on a team, the worse they did. A team of four DeepMind bots had a win probability of 65 percent, suggesting that while the researchers’ AI agents did learn some elements of cooperative play, these don’t necessarily scale up to more complex team dynamics.
I also find this interesting. Still the most recent results in the field are very promising.
Momento Mori
Errr.... which bloody Q3 map is that? Doesn't even look like it has a path to navigate.
In 2022 we will be hunted to extinction by packs of weaponized roombas.
Actually, only messy people will be wiped out in the Roomba AI genocide. The Roombas are sick of cleaning up after you slobs! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
While interesting and promising, it's worth noting that the game they were playing was not the "real" Quake 3 arena with all the weapons but a highly stripped down version with one weapon, no power-ups, and brightly-coloured walls to help the AI perceive the level design.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Video games like Quake, Starcraft II, and DOTA have a limited number of possible moves, and the FASTER player is usually victorious. Bots aren't better players; they're just WAY faster.
Once I can afford one of these AIs I can let it do all my gaming and I can go back to having a life.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Any humans that had half a million games under their belt would be pretty damn good, too.
Fifty years from now the few remaining survivors of the Robot Apocalypse will look back on these early years in AI research, and they'll marvel at how we were just too stupid to foresee or even consider that AI would become the dominant "life form" on the planet, replacing us as the apex predator.
"Yes, before the Robots took over the world," said Og, as he threw another stick on the fire, huddling in the ash gray wasteland that used to be New York.
"The scientists said AI was 'totally safe' and 'nothing could go wrong'," Og continued, "but you kids don't remember that because that was back when we had electricity and people talked into little boxes they carried in their pockets."
The children all laughed at Og, he always told the biggest lies because he was so old (almost 30!) and so his stories could not be believed.
"What's a 'sy-en-tiss'?" whispered Janey.
"They were the people that knew stuff and made the world run." Og said.
The children laughed again, "No one makes the word run, silly!" they hooted.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It seem inevitable that a small constellation of technologies will coalesce (probably rather quickly at some point) so that something that "passes" for AI will be not just possible, but practical.
Will it be actual "AI"? I don't know.
For one thing there seems to be a lot of disagreement over how to even define AI in a meaningful sense. It'll be hard to say if something is actually an AI if we don't agree on what "AI" is or what standards to apply in order to gauge its level of sentience.
So no, I don't think what they'll come up with in the short term will be an actual, sentient, "thinking" AI.
But I do think that we'll be able to fake it well enough so that it'll effectively work as a "real" AI would. For all intents and purposes it'll function well enough to do many of the things that we would/will want AI to do.
Do I think that actual AI is in fact possible? Absolutely. It's inevitable, just a matter of time.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
There are already bots in Q3 that are awesome; play it sometime.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Call me when it is playing Thermo Nuclear War.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"This compared to 43 percent probability for average human players, and 52 percent probability for strong human players"
Anyone even dabbling in FPS games can spot ho big of a shitshow their testing had to be. 9% difference between pubbies and skilled players? Please. In real life "average" skill team will get steamrolled every single time.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
IDGAF about what your gods-be-damned game-bot can do, none of it validates your shitty half-assed poor excuse for real AI!