DeepMind’s AlphaStar Reaches Grandmaster Level in StarCraft II Game

Google’s AI lab DeepMind announced that its AI software AlphaStar has now being trained to Grandmaster Level in Blizzard Entertainment’s online strategy game StarCraft II. This means that the AI can beat 99.8% of all human players in competition. AlphaStar reached this milestone whilst being effectively limited in terms of viewing the map of the game, as well as the ability to register mouse clicks as if operated by a human. Despite such restrictions, the AI achieved Grandmaster status, the first ever system to do so for this game title. DeepMind hopes advances in reinforcement learning achieved will be more widely applied. Likely real-world application for such software is robotics, where the same techniques can properly train AI agents how to operate robotic hands. After simulating years upon years of motor control, the AI can take the reins of a physical robotic arms, and maybe one day even control full-body robots.