Well, it definitely may have had an advantage that embodied humans can’t have. “Does perfect stalker micro really count as intelligence?”, we wail. But you have to remember that previous starcraft bots playing with completely unrestricted apm weren’t even close to competitive level. I think that the evidence is pretty strong that AlphaStar (at least the version without attention that just perceived the whole map) could beat humans under whatever symmetric APM cap you want.
“Does perfect stalker micro really count as intelligence?”
Love this bit.
the evidence is pretty strong that AlphaStar (at least the version without attention that just perceived the whole map) could beat humans under whatever symmetric APM cap you want
This does not seem at all clear to me. Weren’t all the strategies using micro super-effectively? And apparently making other human-detectable mistakes? Seems possible that AlphaStar would win anyway without the micro, but not at all certain.
It was using micro effectively, but the crazy 1200+ APM fight was pretty unusual. If you look at most of its fights (e.g. https://youtu.be/H3MCb4W7-kM?t=2854 , APM number appears intermittently in the center-bottom ), with 6-10 units, it’s using about the same APM as the human—the micro advantage for 98% of the game isn’t because it’s clicking faster, its clicks are just better.
There were a bunch of mistakes in the first matches shown, but when they trained for twice as long it seemed like those mistakes mostly went away, and its macro play seemed within the range of skilled humans (if you’re willing to suspect that overbuilding probes might be good).
I don’t know anything about StarCraft, but the impression I got was that a few seconds of superhuman clicking in high leverage situations can mean a lot.
Agreed that this is a big improvement on previous StarCraft AIs no matter its clicking speed, but this seems like reason to doubt that AI has surpassed human strategy in StarCraft.
but this seems like reason to doubt that AI has surpassed human strategy in StarCraft
I think Charlie might be suggesting that AlphaStar would be superior to humans, even with only human or sub-human APM, because the precision of those actions would still be superhuman, even if the total number was slightly subhuman:
the micro advantage for 98% of the game isn’t because it’s clicking faster, its clicks are just better
This wouldn’t necessarily mean that AlphaStar is better at strategy.
Inhuman burst APM allows AlphaStar to win stalemates far better than a human can with crazy micro, and it also uses strange, normally illogical strategies that capitalize on that ability (such as some Zerglings defeating a tank with superior micro). The AI no doubt has learned strategy and has a high level of intelligence in the game, but I don’t think AlphaStar would be nearly as competitive if it had perfect simulation of human APM, enough to the point where it may not be safe to say that AlphaStar has outplayed any pro players so much as out-tech’d them. To parrot ESRogs, it’s not evident to me that AlphaStar could beat humans under any symmetric APM cap.
Well, it definitely may have had an advantage that embodied humans can’t have. “Does perfect stalker micro really count as intelligence?”, we wail. But you have to remember that previous starcraft bots playing with completely unrestricted apm weren’t even close to competitive level. I think that the evidence is pretty strong that AlphaStar (at least the version without attention that just perceived the whole map) could beat humans under whatever symmetric APM cap you want.
Love this bit.
This does not seem at all clear to me. Weren’t all the strategies using micro super-effectively? And apparently making other human-detectable mistakes? Seems possible that AlphaStar would win anyway without the micro, but not at all certain.
It was using micro effectively, but the crazy 1200+ APM fight was pretty unusual. If you look at most of its fights (e.g. https://youtu.be/H3MCb4W7-kM?t=2854 , APM number appears intermittently in the center-bottom ), with 6-10 units, it’s using about the same APM as the human—the micro advantage for 98% of the game isn’t because it’s clicking faster, its clicks are just better.
There were a bunch of mistakes in the first matches shown, but when they trained for twice as long it seemed like those mistakes mostly went away, and its macro play seemed within the range of skilled humans (if you’re willing to suspect that overbuilding probes might be good).
I don’t know anything about StarCraft, but the impression I got was that a few seconds of superhuman clicking in high leverage situations can mean a lot.
Agreed that this is a big improvement on previous StarCraft AIs no matter its clicking speed, but this seems like reason to doubt that AI has surpassed human strategy in StarCraft.
I think Charlie might be suggesting that AlphaStar would be superior to humans, even with only human or sub-human APM, because the precision of those actions would still be superhuman, even if the total number was slightly subhuman:
This wouldn’t necessarily mean that AlphaStar is better at strategy.
Inhuman burst APM allows AlphaStar to win stalemates far better than a human can with crazy micro, and it also uses strange, normally illogical strategies that capitalize on that ability (such as some Zerglings defeating a tank with superior micro). The AI no doubt has learned strategy and has a high level of intelligence in the game, but I don’t think AlphaStar would be nearly as competitive if it had perfect simulation of human APM, enough to the point where it may not be safe to say that AlphaStar has outplayed any pro players so much as out-tech’d them. To parrot ESRogs, it’s not evident to me that AlphaStar could beat humans under any symmetric APM cap.