Google’s AlphaGo has become a master at what is considered to be the most difficult board game around – Go – but now the company has a new challenge for its AI: Starcraft.
According to The Korea Times, Google has chosen the extremely popular real-time strategy PC game as the next guinea pig for testing AlphaGo.
Google is reportedly planning on showing the AI videos of Starcraft being played by professionals, in order for the intelligence to grasp the idea of the game and develop strategies for combating the best at the Blizzard battler.
Deepmind, the AI company purchased by Google in 2014, announced a partnership with Starcraft developer Blizzard back in November to create a platform that will allow an AI to be trained to play Starcraft.
What makes Google’s decision to send its AI into the Starcraft ring so interesting is the fact that, unlike Go, the best Starcraft players need to develop complicated strategies in real time, adapting them in order to succeed.
An AI capable of doing this well would be a significant step forward from one capable of playing the turn-based Go.
This week, AlphaGo has already defeated Ke Jei, widely considered to be the world’s best Go player, in the first of three rounds of the board game. The Chinese sensation is not expected to pull back the current deficit from AlphaGo.
The AI previously bested Lee Se-dol, a South Korean considered to be among the best human Go players in the world.
At this point, there's no date set for the first AI vs human Starcraft game, but Google is reportedly considering using a robot arm for its AI in order to even the odds with a human who will have to use a keyboard and mouse during the match.
