A bot created by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence startup backed by Tesla CEO and visionary Elon Musk, could be the new best DOTA 2 player in the world, as the world's top human players have so far been no match for it.
The news comes about a week after it was reported that a Facebook AI system had to be shut down after it started communicating in a language that they could not understand. The fear of the AI system evolving into Skynet has since been debunked, but combined with the DOTA 2-playing OpenAI bot, we can't help but wonder what the future holds for the technology.
AI Beats The World's Best 'DOTA 2' Players
In a blog post by OpenAI, the startup revealed that a bot it created has beaten some of the world's best players in DOTA 2, a multiplayer online battle arena from Valve.
The DOTA 2 AI faced off against Danil Ishutin, better known as Dendi and a popular name in the DOTA 2 eSports scene, at The International, the biggest annual tournament for the game.
The bot and Dendi went up against each other in 1-on-1 matches, with the rules being that the first player to score two kills or destroy a tower would be the winner.
In the first game, with both players using Shadow Fiend, Dendi was flustered by the dominance of the OpenAI bot, with the AI scoring two kills to win compared to one kill by Dendi. The AI was able to execute a perfect creep block, launch perfectly balanced creep aggro, and even recognized when Dendi was using a healing item to cancel it. In the second game, after the AI scored a quick kill, Dendi threw in the towel, saying that the bot was simply "too strong!"
With its victory over Dendi, the DOTA 2-playing AI remains unbeaten against many top professional players, including SumaiL, the world's top 1-on-1 player, and Arteezy, the world's top overall player.
What Does The Future Hold For AI?
The incident involving the Facebook AI system actually proves that AI is still far from perfection, as opposed to creeping closer to taking over the world. However, the feat achieved by OpenAI's bot has set the tone for what the future holds for the technology.
Musk tweeted that the OpenAI bot was the first one to defeat the world's best eSports players, with a game that is more complex than traditional board games such as chess and Go.
OpenAI is trying to make sure that AI becomes a positive addition to mankind, as opposed to the horrific future portrayed in the Terminator film franchise. According to OpenAI CTO and co-founder Greg Brockman, the DOTA 2 achievements are the first step in creating systems that can learn more complicated and important tasks in the real world such as surgery.
