In Starcraft 2, European players will have to compete against the AlphaStar AI in the rankings. The AI previously caused a stir when it made some professionals look outdated.
This is about: AlphaStar is an artificial intelligence (AI) developed by the company DeepMind. For a test, the AlphaStar AI will soon participate in a small number of Starcraft 2 ranked matches in Europe.
The test should be as anonymous as possible. Players will have no idea if they are playing a match against the AlphaStar AI. For this reason, there will also be no further details about the start of the action.
The test results will be presented at a later date in a scientific paper along with replays.
Is this fair?
Competitive players may indeed question the fairness of the test. The AI was already deployed earlier this year and was highly successful against professionals. However, likely under not entirely fair conditions. The AlphaStar AI clicked in sprints superhumanly quickly and accurately.
Some adjustments have been made for the upcoming test phase:
- The AI will be used exclusively in 1vs1 battles
- It will compete against all three factions and play as one of those factions
- AlphaStar will only perceive what is visually visible on the map
The Match Making Ratio (MMR) will be calculated normally in games against the AlphaStar AI. It remains to be seen how the players will ultimately react to this.
This is the AlphaStar AI: The AI is specifically developed by Google’s company DeepMind for Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 was chosen as a test subject due to its complexity.
The behavior of the AlphaStar AI is generated by a deep neural network. Game data, such as the number of game field units and their rights, are read and lead to a reaction from the AI.
The learning process of AlphaStar is based on the imitation of real player actions.
