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DeepMind AI to Tackle StarCraft II

It looks like the world’s best eSports players could have a tough match on their hands in the near future, possibly, as the team at DeepMind partner up with Blizzard to use StarCraft II as an AI research environment. With the games competitive 1v1 matches, as well as 20-years of award winning gaming history to its name, it seems like the perfect companion to teach robots how to destroy us all (that may be a slight exaggeration).

“DeepMind is on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI, developing programs that can learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be told how. Games are the perfect environment in which to do this, allowing us to develop and test smarter, more flexible AI algorithms quickly and efficiently, and also providing instant feedback on how we’re doing through scores.” said DeepMind in their recent statement. “StarCraft is an interesting testing environment for current AI research because it provides a useful bridge to the messiness of the real-world. The skills required for an agent to progress through the environment and play StarCraft well could ultimately transfer to real-world tasks.”

It’ll be interesting to see how competitive the AI can become. Will it tend to favour a certain class, a particular move set, or play style. Also, how will it grow over time, will it become unbeatable by human players? We’ll have to wait and see.

“We’re particularly pleased that the environment we’ve worked with Blizzard to construct will be open and available to all researchers next year. We recognise the efforts of the developers and researchers from the Brood War community in recent years, and hope that this new, modern and flexible environment – supported directly by the team at Blizzard – will be widely used to advance the state-of-the-art.”

You can check out more about this project and other work from DeepMind right here.

Peter Donnell

As a child still in my 30's (but not for long), I spend my day combining my love of music and movies with a life-long passion for gaming, from arcade classics and retro consoles to the latest high-end PC and console games. So it's no wonder I write about tech and test the latest hardware while I enjoy my hobbies!