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OpenAI Is Beating Humans At 'Dota 2' Because It's Basically Cheating (vice.com)
Motherboard's Matthew Gault provides another possibility for how OpenAI's bots managed to beat professional human players in two consecutive games of Data 2. Gault argues that "it was only possible thanks to significant guardrails and an inhuman advantage" -- not necessarily because the AI was more clever than the humans. From the report: The OpenAI Five bots consisted of algorithms known as neural networks, which loosely mimic the brain and "learn" to complete tasks after a process of training and feedback. The research company put its Dota 2-playing AI through 180 days worth of virtual training to prepare it for the match, and it showed. However, the bots had to play within some highly specific limitations. Dota 2 is a complicated game with more than 100 heroes. Some of them use quirky and game-changing abilities. For this exhibition, the hero pool was limited to just 18. That's an incredible handicap because so much of Dota 2 involves a team picking the proper group composition and reacting to what its opponents pick. Reducing the number of champions from more than 100 to 18 made things much simpler for the AI.
The OpenAI Five bots also played Dota 2 by reading the game's information directly from its application programming interface (API), which allows other programs to easily interface with Dota 2. This gives the AI instant knowledge about the game, whereas human players have to visually interpret a screen. If a human was able to do this in a competitive match against other humans, we'd probably call it cheating. Even with this AI advantage, Walsh and his team beat the bots in the third game, when the match organizers turned hero selection over to the crowd, which gave the AI a weak hero composition. Walsh thinks he and his team could eventually beat the AI in a fair right, even given the limited hero pool and other restrictions.
The OpenAI Five bots also played Dota 2 by reading the game's information directly from its application programming interface (API), which allows other programs to easily interface with Dota 2. This gives the AI instant knowledge about the game, whereas human players have to visually interpret a screen. If a human was able to do this in a competitive match against other humans, we'd probably call it cheating. Even with this AI advantage, Walsh and his team beat the bots in the third game, when the match organizers turned hero selection over to the crowd, which gave the AI a weak hero composition. Walsh thinks he and his team could eventually beat the AI in a fair right, even given the limited hero pool and other restrictions.
Really? The best they could come up with is comparing the bot to a programmable mouse, illegal in human play? This standard basically disqualifies any bot implementation being fair in their definition just on the basis of being a program. What do they want? The bot to send commands to a human operator which plays the game for it?
Their slightly less ridiculous claim is saying the bot is unfair because it interfaces with the game not through mouse and keyboard and the dota renderer but through valve's bot api. Just..fine, if you dont care about how good a bot can be under the dota developer's own definition, then ignore the results.
I just dont understand the mindset here, is this resistance to change? People dont want AI to be good, so they make up narratives to explain away recent successes? It really feels like the same mindset as conspiracy theorists.
Do you know the difference between DOTA and DATA?
Neither does BeauHD.
The latency is cheating. On paper it sounds good, but it misses the fact that the AI has API access that can immediately evaluate the situation without visual problems. Humans can hit 200ms or less when they are coming on a situation they understand, but watching programmers in StarCraft, reaction times of 500ms upon seeing something slightly different are more normal (or even a second). "Oh, the enemy is in my base, I need to switch my screen over there, figure out what's there, then respond with the appropriate amount of force." Whereas the AI sees units in base and 200ms later has the appropriate response. Again, it's been known for a long time that AI can win with faster key presses and response times. Just like aimbots.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Who is Matthew Gault?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
An airgap should be required. The machine only sees the game with a camera/pair-of-cameras. The machine only makes moves osing electromechanical servos placed over a controller/keyboard.