Shropshire Star

AI beats esports world champions for the first time

A team of artificially intelligent players beat the reigning world champions of online battle game Dota 2.

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Esports players from professional team OG wih OpenAI engineers

Artificial intelligence (AI) software has beaten a human team of world champion professional esports players for the first time.

A team built and trained by research company OpenAI beat the current world champions of online battle game Dota 2, which is the subject of one of the world’s largest esports competitions.

The OpenAI Five team beat human team OG 2-0 at a live event in San Francisco, the first time it had achieved the feat in public, having lost its previous public meeting with human competitors despite victories over other teams behind closed doors.

The software appeared at Dota 2 tournament The International last year – an event where the winners took home more than 11 million US dollars (£8.4 million) – and OpenAI said the difference between defeat on that occasion and victory in the latest meeting was extra training.