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DeepMind/AlphaStar Discussion Thread

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jy_9876543210
Profile Joined March 2016
265 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 20:54:31
January 24 2019 20:38 GMT
#1
Those 1000+ apm from human progamers is not real micro apm, there exists some keyboards which have "speed up" function that increases your input rate much faster, so you can do something like "turn all larvae into zerglings" really fast, but they are useless in your micro; while for the AlphaStar sometime it has 1600 peak apm which is during its micro. They should limit the peak apm to a more reasonable value, otherwise it will become meaningless for AI vs human matches, since most of all we want to see the evolution of strategies, not micro skills.
Phase 1: F2    Phase 2: A   Phase 3: Profit!
Nakajin
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
Canada8989 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 20:48:53
January 24 2019 20:41 GMT
#2
That some Buzzfeed thread name, you should probably rename it too be more clear. (if you really think it need it's own separate thread)

On the APM argument I don't know where too stand, sliding the apm up or down won't change the fact that it should always be perfect so it's kinda weird. But the standard camera is good step to make it fair.
Writerhttp://i.imgur.com/9p6ufcB.jpg
swissman777
Profile Joined September 2014
1106 Posts
January 24 2019 20:45 GMT
#3
Agreed on the peak apm. Some peak apm went over 500, and each of those are precise micro movements. AlphaStar also doesn't warm up like human players so its average apm is very underestimated.
jy_9876543210
Profile Joined March 2016
265 Posts
January 24 2019 20:46 GMT
#4
On January 25 2019 05:41 Nakajin wrote:
That some Buzzfeed thread name, you should probably rename it too be more clear. (if you really think it need it's own separate thread)

Well, I think it's important for them to notice that the AI micro is quite inhuman, but yeah that title was not clear. Sadly I can't edit it after posting it. Hopefully some mod can find a good title? Please fix it, thanks.
Phase 1: F2    Phase 2: A   Phase 3: Profit!
TBO
Profile Joined September 2009
Germany1350 Posts
January 24 2019 20:49 GMT
#5
their apm graph they had where the compared it to Darios APM was also a bit misleading because of the way the "steal from control group and assign to new control group" action he extensively uses messes up the apm counter.
Nakajin
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
Canada8989 Posts
January 24 2019 20:49 GMT
#6
On January 25 2019 05:46 jy_9876543210 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2019 05:41 Nakajin wrote:
That some Buzzfeed thread name, you should probably rename it too be more clear. (if you really think it need it's own separate thread)

Well, I think it's important for them to notice that the AI micro is quite inhuman, but yeah that title was not clear. Sadly I can't edit it after posting it. Hopefully some mod can find a good title? Please fix it, thanks.


Fair enough
Writerhttp://i.imgur.com/9p6ufcB.jpg
swissman777
Profile Joined September 2014
1106 Posts
January 24 2019 21:03 GMT
#7
On January 25 2019 05:46 jy_9876543210 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2019 05:41 Nakajin wrote:
That some Buzzfeed thread name, you should probably rename it too be more clear. (if you really think it need it's own separate thread)

Well, I think it's important for them to notice that the AI micro is quite inhuman, but yeah that title was not clear. Sadly I can't edit it after posting it. Hopefully some mod can find a good title? Please fix it, thanks.

I think we have to accept that AI micro will be amazing, given that'll be the only thing that AIs would be good at theoretically. However, I think we need to carefully tone how amazing AI micro would be, since the whole point of this project is to mimic human creativity and adaptability.
frontliner2
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Netherlands844 Posts
January 24 2019 21:04 GMT
#8
nice title... I think the fact that an AI can compute and counter strategies at this level is actually commendable
I had a bad dream. Don't be afraid, bad dreams are only dreams. What a time you chose to be born in...
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany15981 Posts
January 24 2019 21:14 GMT
#9
On January 25 2019 05:49 TBO wrote:
their apm graph they had where the compared it to Darios APM was also a bit misleading because of the way the "steal from control group and assign to new control group" action he extensively uses messes up the apm counter.

how does it mess up the apm counter?
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
jy_9876543210
Profile Joined March 2016
265 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 21:20:28
January 24 2019 21:14 GMT
#10
On January 25 2019 06:04 frontliner2 wrote:
nice title... I think the fact that an AI can compute and counter strategies at this level is actually commendable

Yes, it already showed some huge improvements in understanding the economy system (which may benefit human players) and attacking skills comparing with AI before, considering that it learnt sc2 from scratch instead of scripts written by human, but it's not enough. When base was under attack, it retreated the entire army back home which caused it to lose the live game vs Mana. If it doesn't have such inhuman micro, maybe the progamer can win it much more easily, not like a 0-10 score.
We just hope to see that next time it plays with a progamer, it will win with strategies, not inhuman micros.
Phase 1: F2    Phase 2: A   Phase 3: Profit!
Rowrin
Profile Joined September 2011
United States280 Posts
January 24 2019 21:17 GMT
#11
I don't think the amount of APM is going to matter, because at the end of the day, a computer given 500 actions per minute is always going to make more accurate and pick better actions/decisions vs a human given 500 actions (probably even significantly more as well). I think what the feature game displayed is that you don't want to try and beat an AI by microing against it. Rather, you want to abuse the fact that it is an AI and that it's decision making is somewhat predictable and reproducible.

For instance, the AI goes blink stalkers very consistently (probably because of the high value they get when paired with increased ability to micro). Knowing that the AI considers this strategy "optimal" or at least favored, we can build a counter strategy etc.

It's decision making against the warp prism harass was another weakness that displayed reproducible decision making that MaNa could and did abuse (at least in that game, who knows if it'll learn to adapt to that strategy after a few more hundred years of simulated learning).
brickrd
Profile Blog Joined March 2014
United States4894 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 21:37:35
January 24 2019 21:37 GMT
#12
actually, SC2 fans should understand a thing: the purpose of deepmind entering starcraft is not to provide us entertaining bots to satisfy our intellectual curiosities about the nature of competition in RTS. it's to promote and showcase machine learning. they're doing something historically and technologically significant whereas we are playing games. we should be thanking them for taking any interest at all and for giving SC2 visibility rather than criticizing people who are professional researchers working in their own damn field.
TL+ Member
Waxangel
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
United States33433 Posts
January 24 2019 21:39 GMT
#13
On January 25 2019 05:49 TBO wrote:
their apm graph they had where the compared it to Darios APM was also a bit misleading because of the way the "steal from control group and assign to new control group" action he extensively uses messes up the apm counter.


that's actually pretty interesting to hear

so you'd say MaNa's max of 700APM is more realistic?

[image loading]
AdministratorHey HP can you redo everything youve ever done because i have a small complaint?
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany15981 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 21:44:48
January 24 2019 21:43 GMT
#14
On January 25 2019 06:39 Waxangel wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2019 05:49 TBO wrote:
their apm graph they had where the compared it to Darios APM was also a bit misleading because of the way the "steal from control group and assign to new control group" action he extensively uses messes up the apm counter.


that's actually pretty interesting to hear

so you'd say MaNa's max of 700APM is more realistic?

[image loading]

pretty sure that's only when Mana uses rapidfire warp-in.
I don't think more than 500, maybe 600 "real" peak apm is really realistic
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
jy_9876543210
Profile Joined March 2016
265 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 22:04:45
January 24 2019 21:56 GMT
#15
On January 25 2019 06:37 brickrd wrote:
actually, SC2 fans should understand a thing: the purpose of deepmind entering starcraft is not to provide us entertaining bots to satisfy our intellectual curiosities about the nature of competition in RTS. it's to promote and showcase machine learning. they're doing something historically and technologically significant whereas we are playing games. we should be thanking them for taking any interest at all and for giving SC2 visibility rather than criticizing people who are professional researchers working in their own damn field.

Whatever, I can make a program that showcase "AI can beat human in Counter-Strike" and valve should be proud that I choose their game to show that.
Right now the SC2 AI didn't show any better strategies than human, just better micro which is not surprising at all. So if this continues it means nothing if it beats all human players, maybe it's not more clever, it just has 1000 more fingers. And every researcher still believes they created an AI that is better than human in strategies and say "look the apm of AI is lower than human players", which is absolutely misleading.
Phase 1: F2    Phase 2: A   Phase 3: Profit!
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France12901 Posts
January 24 2019 22:17 GMT
#16
On January 25 2019 06:37 brickrd wrote:
actually, SC2 fans should understand a thing: the purpose of deepmind entering starcraft is not to provide us entertaining bots to satisfy our intellectual curiosities about the nature of competition in RTS. it's to promote and showcase machine learning. they're doing something historically and technologically significant whereas we are playing games. we should be thanking them for taking any interest at all and for giving SC2 visibility rather than criticizing people who are professional researchers working in their own damn field.

Actually their goal is to progress towards general AI, and they think "solving" a game such as SC2 will help them get to that point. So the question of how fair does the AI play is very important, because for any breakthrough to happen, they'll need to be able to beat top humans consistently in the most fair way possible (so that it wins through intelligence). If they manage to create such an AI, it'll have to be robust on its own (by fast adaptation), one way or another.
WriterMaru
No_Roo
Profile Joined February 2010
United States905 Posts
January 24 2019 22:22 GMT
#17
APM is a proxy measurement useful for comparing humans using similar input devices. It's mostly useless as a restriction for an AI. These graphs are meaningless.
(US) NoRoo.fighting
StormsInJuly
Profile Joined January 2009
Sweden165 Posts
January 24 2019 22:32 GMT
#18
Asking for fairness, or trying to get an AI to play as human-like as possible by imposing restrictions on it, is sort of missing the point.
But I agree it's interesting to place restrictions on it and see if it can still beat pros with a hard cap on 200apm, then 100apm, etc.
Seeing it get juked hard by warp prism play makes me think it's a bit too early to start handicapping it like that though.
Cuce
Profile Joined March 2011
Turkey1127 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 22:35:02
January 24 2019 22:32 GMT
#19
Watching the 4th mana game again, micro is way too good.

It woudl have been a much more important achivement with more limited micro

I think limitation is the whole point. we dont need alpha ai to beat pro players on micro. we had automaton 2000 in beta fr that.

the idea is to beat the pro player in decision making not micro, without limitations there is no point to this experiment.
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany15981 Posts
January 24 2019 22:34 GMT
#20
On January 25 2019 07:32 StormsInJuly wrote:
Asking for fairness, or trying to get an AI to play as human-like as possible by imposing restrictions on it, is sort of missing the point.
But I agree it's interesting to place restrictions on it and see if it can still beat pros with a hard cap on 200apm, then 100apm, etc.
Seeing it get juked hard by warp prism play makes me think it's a bit too early to start handicapping it like that though.

no it's not missing the point - that is exactly the point. The point of this deepmind bot is to prove machines are smarter than humans we already know that they can have better macro/micro with a million apm.
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
Cuce
Profile Joined March 2011
Turkey1127 Posts
January 24 2019 22:37 GMT
#21
On January 25 2019 06:37 brickrd wrote:
actually, SC2 fans should understand a thing: the purpose of deepmind entering starcraft is not to provide us entertaining bots to satisfy our intellectual curiosities about the nature of competition in RTS. it's to promote and showcase machine learning. they're doing something historically and technologically significant whereas we are playing games. we should be thanking them for taking any interest at all and for giving SC2 visibility rather than criticizing people who are professional researchers working in their own damn field.


I dont agree with gratfulness stuff, but I agree that try to improve what they have to a general AI. and having a player level micro will accually be better for it. Their goal was not to win, but beat a human in decision making in a complex incomplete information situation.
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
No_Roo
Profile Joined February 2010
United States905 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 22:44:45
January 24 2019 22:43 GMT
#22
On January 25 2019 07:32 StormsInJuly wrote:
Asking for fairness, or trying to get an AI to play as human-like as possible by imposing restrictions on it, is sort of missing the point.
But I agree it's interesting to place restrictions on it and see if it can still beat pros with a hard cap on 200apm, then 100apm, etc.
Seeing it get juked hard by warp prism play makes me think it's a bit too early to start handicapping it like that though.


The reason why this is important because the game is balanced around what's possible with the given input devices. Remove restrictions and any AI will beat a human: + Show Spoiler +
That is to say, it's already been done, almost a decade ago, hence, not terribly interesting.
(US) NoRoo.fighting
StormsInJuly
Profile Joined January 2009
Sweden165 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 22:52:22
January 24 2019 22:50 GMT
#23
On January 25 2019 07:34 Charoisaur wrote:
The point of this deepmind bot is to prove machines are smarter than humans

To steal a quote, asking if machines are smart is about as relevant as asking if submarines can swim. Computers are faster at a lot of things but until now, we haven't been smart enough to translate that speed into winning a game of Starcraft, APM limit or no. If it's true that deepmind got 200 years of effective practice in during a few years, well that's an unfair advantage and you'd certainly expect a human who could grind SC2 for 200 years to be the best pro player by far.
But I don't really disagree with you, forcing the AI to economize with its actions will yield more interesting results.

On January 25 2019 07:43 No_Roo wrote:
That is to say, it's already been done, almost a decade ago, hence, not terribly interesting.

I'm not aware of any AI consistently beating a pro-level SC/2 player before today but please correct me if I'm wrong.
No_Roo
Profile Joined February 2010
United States905 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 23:09:32
January 24 2019 23:08 GMT
#24
I'm not aware of any AI consistently beating a pro-level SC/2 player before today but please correct me if I'm wrong.


What AI is consistently beating pro level players after today? Alphastar isn't, because it isn't playing starcraft2 yet. It's currently relying on having access to additional in game information that would get a player banned on battlenet if they got caught having access to it.
(US) NoRoo.fighting
jy_9876543210
Profile Joined March 2016
265 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-01-24 23:13:51
January 24 2019 23:09 GMT
#25
On January 25 2019 06:39 Waxangel wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2019 05:49 TBO wrote:
their apm graph they had where the compared it to Darios APM was also a bit misleading because of the way the "steal from control group and assign to new control group" action he extensively uses messes up the apm counter.


that's actually pretty interesting to hear

so you'd say MaNa's max of 700APM is more realistic?

[image loading]

If they provide such plots for all progamers, I wouldn't be surprised if they find that many zerg players has 2000 or 3000 peak apm while the other zergs or the other races has 600.
I believe it depends on something called "keyboard scan rate" or "keyboard polling rate", some keyboards specially designed for that purpose has extremely high rate, so you just press "sz" once and 100 zerglings are made, while it seems that T and P don't need it much.
But that's not the micro ability of human players, and I think DeepMind team didn't notice that and assumed that that's how progamers micro.
Phase 1: F2    Phase 2: A   Phase 3: Profit!
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France12901 Posts
January 24 2019 23:14 GMT
#26
On January 25 2019 08:09 jy_9876543210 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2019 06:39 Waxangel wrote:
On January 25 2019 05:49 TBO wrote:
their apm graph they had where the compared it to Darios APM was also a bit misleading because of the way the "steal from control group and assign to new control group" action he extensively uses messes up the apm counter.


that's actually pretty interesting to hear

so you'd say MaNa's max of 700APM is more realistic?

[image loading]

If they provide such plots for all progamers, I wouldn't be surprised if they find that many zerg players has 2000 or 3000 peak apm while the other zergs or the other races has 600.
I believe it depends on something called "keyboard scan rate" or "keyboard polling rate", some keyboards specially designed for that purpose has extremely high rate, so you just press "sz" once and 100 zerglings are made, while it seems that T and P don't need it much.
But that's not the micro ability of human players, and I think DeepMind team didn't notice that.

There is an AMA going on here (they'll start answering tomorrow) https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/ajgzoc/we_are_oriol_vinyals_and_david_silver_from/ so it'd be interesting if you have an account to directly ask them this question.
WriterMaru
Waxangel
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
United States33433 Posts
January 24 2019 23:40 GMT
#27
going to just merge this into the larger thread https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/541114-alphastar-ai-goes-10-1-against-human-pros-in-demonstration
AdministratorHey HP can you redo everything youve ever done because i have a small complaint?
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