Dota 2 veterans got smashed by clever AI!

When Dota 2 veterans got together for a match, we all expect some blood boiling action, but it seems the case is different when the match is against AI.

After wiping the floor in warm-up games with the audience, OpenAI Five had to take on a team of humans including former Dota 2 professionals and casters Merlini, Fogged, Cap and Blitz. In a three-game series.

OpenAI Five started strongly, winning the first two games comprehensively. In the final game, the OpenAI team let the audience select their team of five heroes, severely handicapping our future robot overlords. That handicap resulted in the bot predicting it would have only a 2.9 percent chance of winning the match, And that prediction turned out to be spot on. The human team clawed back a win, finishing the series 2-1.

The OpenAI team had made some small tweaks to their neural network bot in the past month, increasing its reaction time and putting it through its paces with new, additional strategies.

“It still does seem that they have a much faster reaction when something shocking happens,” said David Farhi, a researcher with OpenAI.

OpenAI Five is developed by OpenAI, a non-profit organization founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and uses a neutral network and machine learning to teach itself to play Dota 2. It can play upward of 180 years worth of games against itself, every day.