#alphastar

♠️ localaceblobfish 🔁 ⭐ kelpieksstarz

🩸 whleboygirl

did anyone else think alpha was a little.. Off. During the stream today?

🐈‍⬛ catfishofthestarz

Yeah he sounded kinda weird. I assume it was a him trying to be spooky for Splatoween but it definitely was suspicious 🤨

⭐ kelpieksstarz

i was there in person for a while and he wasn't acting normal at all. he wasn't playing with any of his usual weapons and kept referring to himself in the third-person ( "he would- i mean i would" ). definitely something up there.

♠️ localaceblobfish

oh carp i didnt know alpha was streaming. does anyone have any screenshots or anything of him?

⛱️ prnzcoast

here you go,, doesnt look like him too much.

🐟 madam--starfish

that might be someone impersonating him for the stream. maybe it's apollo or the red cryptid.

🌊 wave-0f-sunshine

the. the What.

🩸 whleboygirl

cmon. everyone knows about The Red Cryptid!!!.

🐠 zeatrout

This guy ^ He keeps showing up blurry in the backgrounds of random vids, we think he might be a crewmember or one of alpha's friends. I've never seen him in person though.

🐈‍⬛ catfishofthestarz

Huh, didn't know about him. Maybe he's the red bit of the star?

⭐ kelpieksstarz

i feel like alpha would have said something or made a point of it if he was. idk tho. anyways do you guys wanna play some table turf or something?

♠️ localaceblobfish

yeah sure lol once im done eating breakfast

DeepMind just posted a paper (and a paper in Nature) about their work on their StarCraft 2 AI. It’s reached Grandmaster level, putting it roughly on par with the 300th best player in the world.

This is pretty impressive and I don’t want to downplay that, but if you compare to “DeepMind’s AI is significantly better than the world’s best Go player”, it’s pretty noticeable that it’s now “DeepMind's AI is the world’s 300th best StarCraft 2 player”.

And this is, I think, still a bit deceptive when it comes to AlphaStar’s actual skill level. Most pro players have been calling AlphaStar downright horrible, and most pro players utterly crush it when playing against it. I’ve also heard people say that the difference between high grandmaster and low grandmaster (where AlphaStar is) is as big as the difference between low grandmaster and an average player.

This is a bit hard to objectively evaluate, but if you go and actually watch example games, you definitely see AlphaStar having relatively amateurish decisionmaking. It repeatedly tries to send dropships into areas well-protected against dropships, it repeatedly builds buildings in locations that prevent it from doing what it wants...

In a famous game, it built factories in a way that trapped its tanks. After struggling for a bit, it attacked and destroyed its own factory... and then immediately rebuilt a new factory in the same place, before its tanks could escape.

The difference with Go seems to be that while Go has simple rules, StarCraft has complex rules that have simple models. Humans are good at these kinds of models, things like earning and spending money, or opening and closing doors, possibly from life experience, while an AI has significantly more of an uphill climb learning how to model all these things from scratch. AlphaStar seems to have mostly gotten the hang of these things, but every once in a while, it does something that shows it doesn’t fully understand.

AlphaStar usually doesn’t even scout: Human players (even below grandmaster level) will try to see what their opponent is doing, and adjust their strategy accordingly. AlphaStar rarely goes out of its way to figure out what its opponent is doing, and it seems generally unable to adjust its strategy more than slightly.

All this makes it sound like AlphaStar’s decisionmaking is well-below 300th best. So how’d it get there overall? My best guess is that at the low-grandmaster level, human players still make enough small mistakes in clicking or hesitating or prioritizing that AlphaStar can win by just making fewer mistakes. Only at higher levels of grandmaster do players get good enough at the game for the ability to strategize and think on their feet to become meaningful.

Dario Wünsch was feeling confident. The professional gamer was about to become the first to take on the artificial intelligence program AlphaStar in the video game StarCraft II. In this game, players command fleets of alien ships vying for territory. Wünsch, a 28-year-old from Germany, had been playing StarCraft II for nearly 10 years. No way could he lose this five-match challenge to a new AI gamer.

Even AlphaStar’s creators at the London-based company DeepMind weren’t hopeful about the outcome. Many researchers had tried to build an AI program that could handle this complex game. So far, none had created a system that could beat seasoned human players.

AlphaStar faced off against Wünsch in December 2018. At the onset of match one, the AI appeared to make a fatal mistake. It didn’t build a barrier at the entrance to its camp. This allowed Wünsch to invade the camp and destroy several of the AI’s worker units.

This clip is from the video game Starcraft II. In it, professional StarCraft II player Dario Wünsch, who plays as “LiquidTLO,” is overpowered by the artificial intelligence AlphaStar, which is wreaking havoc on Wünsch’s base. The AI’s creators at DeepMind cheer as the AI shows its superiority. Wünsch took it in stride when AlphaStar bested him, 5 matches to 0. (The full video is over two hours long.) CREDIT: DeepMind/YouTube

For a minute, it looked like StarCraft II would remain one realm where humans best machines. Then AlphaStar made a comeback. It built a strike team that quickly wiped out Wünsch’s defenses. AlphaStar 1, Wünsch 0.

Wünsch shook off the loss. He just needed to focus more on defense. But in the second round, AlphaStar surprised the pro gamer. The AI did not attack until it had built an army. That army once again crushed Wünsch’s forces. Three matches later, AlphaStar had won the competition 5-0. Wünsch joined the small but growing club of world-class gamers bested by a machine.  

Building AI gamers that can beat human players is more than a fun project. The goal is to use those programs to tackle real-world challenges, says Sebastian Risi. He is an AI researcher at IT University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

For instance, AIs built to play the online game Dota2 taught a robotic hand how to handle objects. California researchers at the San Francisco–based company OpenAI reported the findings in January. AlphaStar’s creators think their AI could help scientists with complex tasks. For instance, AIs might help simulate climate change or understand conversation.

Still, AIs struggle with two important things. The first is working with each other. The second is constantly applying new knowledge to new situations.

StarCraft games have proved great testing grounds on ways to help AIs work together. To figure out ways to make AIs forever learners, researchers are turning to another popular videogame: Minecraft. Some people may use screen time as a distraction from real life. But virtual challenges may help AI pick up the skills needed for real-world success.

25 - Vórtice polar, Alpha Star juega Starcraft II, ¿se cura el VPH?, y memoria y lenguas / En este episodio, hablamos de una corriente de aire gélido que se desborda en el norte del planeta, de una inteligencia artificial que le gana a tus campeones favoritos de Starcraft II, de un anuncio inusual y dudoso sobre una cura para el virus del papiloma humano, y terminamos hablando de cómo la lengua que hablas podría afectar tus capacidades de memoria. Tenemos la voz invitada de Elisa T Hernández, que nos comparte sus preguntas y escepticismo, además de sus acertados cuestionamientos a cómo estamos comunicando la ciencia (como sociedad (y como HC, claro, porque somos parte de ella (de la sociedad, no de Elisa))). Menú 00:16 - Intro y presentaciones 01:42 - Vórtice polar, explicado 13:36 - AlphaStar domina en Starcraft II 38:31 - La noticia de la cura del virus del papiloma humano 53:36 - La influencia de la lengua en las capacidades de memoria 01:13:51 - Pensamientos finales y despedida Voces y contenido: Elisa T Hernández, Sofía Flores, Rodrigo Pacheco, Víctor Hernández.Edición y producción: Víctor Hernández Voz en la rúbrica: Valeria Sánchez Pueden encontrar a Elisa en su Tuiter https://twitter.com/ElisaT_  .

Aquí una nota sobre el vórtice polar: https://www.weather.gov/safety/winter-spanish-polar Y en esta hay fotos que son realmente espectaculares: https://es.gizmodo.com/las-imagenes-mas-espectaculares-del-vortice-polar-en-es-1832255956 Aquí una sobre Alpha Star: https://www.xataka.com/robotica-e-ia/alphastar-inteligencia-artificial-deepmind-que-ha-logrado-ganar-10-1-a-profesionales-starcraft-ii y una partida que jugó contra Mana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Knq5XjCS4 Aquí el comunicado del IPN sobre el trabajo de la Dra. Eva Gallegos: https://www.ipn.mx/CCS/comunicados/ver-comunicado.html?fbclid=IwAR0BQ0ecRkagsTGW3M3MGDC43YOf-oehPvcCkP3z6hbPJ1tv5f-xMFS7cIs&n=31&y=2019 Y aquí el artículo que comentó Sofía, en su versión en inglés, más directa y menos cortés: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37654-9 Y un par de artículos sobre lengua, mente y filosofía, alrededor de La Llegada (dir. Dennis Villeneuve), la película de 2016 que salió a tema y la cual recomendamos muchísimo: https://www.investigacionyciencia.es/blogs/ciencia-y-sociedad/98/posts/em-la-llegada-em-o-cmo-el-lenguaje-construye-realidades-14960 https://posgrado.ufm.edu/blog/sobre-extraterrestres-realidad-y-lenguaje/ ¡VACUNÉMONOS CONTRA EL VPH! Para más información sobre este virus, las consecuencias que puede causar y la vacuna, aquí la liga del Instituto Mexicano del Virus del Papiloma Humano: https://virusdelpapilomahumano.com.mx/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8LuKosav4AIVB4lpCh3LZwXMEAAYASAAEgLt6fD_BwE

__________ Este podcast es producido desde un lugar donde las temperaturas oscilaban entre 13 y 18 grados Celsius, y aún así estábamos usando sudaderas (también llamados jerseys (también llamados pullovers)), porque nos resulta inconcebible pensar en -50°C, siendo los inocentes niños del verano que somos. Música Intro y salida: Little Lily Swing, de Tri-Tachyon, bajo una licencia Creative Commons 3.0 de Atribución: freemusicarchive.org/music/Tri-Tachyon/ Rúbrica: Now son, de Podington Bear, freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/ Bajo una licencia Creative Commons Internacional de Atribución No Comercial 3.0 Eggs! Toast! Gas! Fish! by Elvis Herod is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.