Artificial intelligence is improving at quite a fast pace, and companies like Google are showcasing their superior technology in games. You may have heard about a computer facing off against numerous professional gamers lately. Well, get ready for even more news on that front. This time around, Google's "DeepMind" managed to destroy some professional gamers at StarCraft II. It wasn't just one match, it was several.
Engadget wrote, "After laying waste to the best... players in the world, DeepMind has moved on to computer games. The Google-owned artificial intelligence company has been fine-tuning... to take on StarCraft II and today showed off its first head-to-head matches against professional gamers." The report adds that the computer-controlled opponent, "named AlphaStar, managed to pick up ten wins against StarCraft II professionals TLO and MaNa in two separate five-game series that originally took place back in December. After racking up ten straight losses, the pros finally scored a win."
While gaming isn't really a good demonstration of this technology — it can be used to further a lot of other areas such as theoretical physics and even medicine — it does paint a picture of how far DeepMind has come to understand human behavior. All I know is that I definitely wouldn't want to go up against DeepMind in any game, let alone an experience as competitive as StarCraft II.
What do you think about DeepMind's victories over professionals? Let us know. It'll be interesting to see if such advanced artificial intelligence technology makes its way to games one day. However, given the computing requirements, it might only be a multiplayer or cloud-based experience.
