OpenAI bots destroyed Dota 2 vets in an exhibition match

[David Matthews]

What just happened? OpenAI bots thoroughly defeat a team of Dota 2 veterans in a best-of-three series. This is yet another instance of bots using machine learning to drastically increase skills to defeat human opponents. Be very afraid.

Another day, another article about advanced AI beating a human professional in a game. This time, a team of OpenAI bots took on a team of former Dota 2 professionals in an exhibition match in what should've been pretty competitive...it wasn't.

This past weekend, the "OpenAI Five" competed against four pro Dota 2 players and one commentator in a best-of-three series. The OpenAI Five won the first two matches pretty convincingly. In fact, the humans were unable to destroy any of the OpenAI towers in the first match. The Dota 2 pros were able to save face a little by winning the third round. Some of the constraints of the competition included limiting the pool of Dota heroes to just 18 instead of the entire 100-plus heroes and the reaction time of the OpenAI Five was increased from 80ms to 200ms to give the poor humans a fighting chance.

Never felt more useless in my life but we're having fun at least so I think we're winning in spirit.

Sure aren't winning in-game

— Cap (@DotACapitalist) August 5, 2018

The human team consisted of former pros Ben “Merlini” Wu, William “Blitz” Lee, and Ioannis “Fogged” Lucas. Current pro David "MoonMeander" Tan and commentator Austin "Capitalist" Walsh rounded out the rest of the team.

The bots are a product of OpenAI, a research non-profit co-founded by Elon Musk. The organization started teaching the bot to play Dota 2 last year using machine learning. The bots were trained by completing matches against itself with a rate of an astounding 180 years of playing per day. Eventually, the OpenAI bot was able to defeat pro gamers during one-on-one combat including well-known pro Danil "Dendi" Ishutin at The International 2017.

The OpenAI Five seem to have made insane progress this year. The bots were losing to amateurs in May of this year. In June they were able to beat more competent players. The ultimate challenge will be at 2018 The International later this month where the OpenAI Five will take on the best of the best in a side event. In the meantime, watch our future overlords destroy the competition below.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/75827-openai-bots-destroyed-dota-2-vets-exhibition-match.html

 

[treetops]

Kinda reminds me of the Dream Dota hack in dota 1. I don't hack, but I do like to know what I'm up against. If a dodgable projectile was sent your direction, the hack would make you dodge it, it worked real well with blink dagger. It would auto surround heroes in the normal game to trap them and in dota with heroes that had many minions. If a unit had low health it would automatically send them back to town in the normal game. It quick snatched any item on the ground. If someone had low enough hp for Zeus ult to kill them it would automatically use it. Zeus ult hits everyone on the map. It would auto last hit creeps. It had other advantages but would be considered cheating if used by a bot. Even what I listed gives a major advantage.

I wonder if the best of the best played the ai at 100 matches, who would come out on top. The players likely would find weaknesses in the ai and vice versa.

 

[Fobus]

Kinda reminds me of the Dream Dota hack in dota 1. I don't hack, but I do like to know what I'm up against. If a dodgable projectile was sent your direction, the hack would make you dodge it, it worked real well with blink dagger. It would auto surround heroes in the normal game to trap them and in dota with heroes that had many minions. If a unit had low health it would automatically send them back to town in the normal game. It quick snatched any item on the ground. If someone had low enough hp for Zeus ult to kill them it would automatically use it. Zeus ult hits everyone on the map. It would auto last hit creeps. It had other advantages but would be considered cheating if used by a bot. Even what I listed gives a major advantage.

I wonder if the best of the best played the ai at 100 matches, who would come out on top. The players likely would find weaknesses in the ai and vice versa.

Yeah, I wonder how much of it is simply interface advantage that bots have over humans. How much would the outcome change if instead if were bots vs bots controlled by other humans? That is, second to second combat and all other stuff is maintained by a bot, but higher level thinking and overall strategy is by a human ordering the bot to fight in one style or another.

 

[amghwk]

Imagine applying these AI techs into war machines and robots.

 

[Nobina]

I'm not a DotA expert by any means, but I did hear that this human team was full of people who work as talent and have been retired as pro players for years.