> By throttling the AI to what a human can do[...]
I think this is far from true, a human cannot keep the APM throughout the game on the level the AI was throttled to. If the AI was throttled to the average APM in e-sports, that would be more fair, but it was throttled to the HIGHEST APM reached by a human. Again, it's not "highest average APM in a single match", it's just highest number of actions in a given minute [I don't know if it was an all-time record or just some arbitrary value inspired by some arbitrarily chosen local record; what I know it was way too high to be fair]. Furthermore, SC2 players spam unnecessary clicks to keep themselves warmed up - if playing against AI, that is limited to average APM of its opponent, was a thing, then I'd safely bet the APM of that player would decrease 3 to 5 times WITHOUT the player reducing the number of actions that are of little (but still some) significance in order to abuse this AI limitation.
Again, the event was cool, but it makes me sad the technicalities weren't communicated clearly, which made it an advertisement rather than sport IMHO.
I do get that. I agree.
Maybe top pro's keep APM at 400 over entire match, but not really, there are ebbs/flows/spamming. While AI can max out at 400 and do that the entire match, and it isn't spamming, so every move is probably meaningful.
Maybe, throttle both AI and Human both to 200? Something like that? So both are capped lower.
For real time games. This 'throttling' is tricky. For turn based games, time limits are equal. But real time, because if we are measuring AI performance, it could be unleashed and be faster than a human and win. So is slowing down the AI really allowing for measuring the AI performance?
Like in real life.
Lets say you have a robot with a gun, and a human with a gun.
They both need to draw, aim, and fire.
Would we 'slow down' the robot to match the human? That doesn't seem like the way to measure how 'good' the AI is at doing those tasks. It could be faster.
Netflix has documentary on AI. Military had AI flying F16's, and it could beat all the best human pilots. Of course, No slowing down the AI.
In real world there are physical limits. Just need someway to translate that to real time games.
Very subjectively, I'd say: limit the APM to something very low, below 50. You now change the game: it's no longer about making many decisions, it's only partially about reacting quickly, rewarding thinking through your decisions before ordering them. This would measure the intellect more than speed.
BTW there is a mode in coop mode that AFAIR makes you pay minerals for each action, so such throttling is within canon ;)
Of course, being Bronze, with a 50 APM, this sounds great to me.
It could only play 1 race, but I think the opposition could be different races. I think it was protoss, but it was playing terrans and zerg. There might have been 1 or 2 units that were also removed.
In the first events where it was really dominant. It could see the whole map at once, and move its units all over the map by seeing it all. So moving units on both sides of the map practically simultaneously. BUT, this was called out as just too much of an advantage, so they made another version that actually had to move the camera around the map like a human. And the second version was still able to perform.
Map wise though, for AI, I think the dealing with the fog of war and un-known/imperfect information was the big break through. Not the map size or speed. It still had to scout, and keep up with enemy movements that were hidden, and anticipate. The zoom out didn't provide that.
I'm not totally buying the APM argument (but by end of the paragraph I do). Even if a computer can move 'faster', each move must mean something, do something worthwhile. So the computer must think out its moves. I know micro in SC2 is very big deal, and speed is essential, but you do have to know what to micro. The computer having 1000+ APM was called out also, and they added a limit. By throttling the AI to what a human can do, is handicapping the AI which isn't proving that AI isn't as good, it is showing that it can be better. Or another way, in Chess or GO, there is a time limit, but nobody is throttling the AI CPU to the same speed as a human brain, like limiting its computation cycles.
So, guess in end, I do agree, throttling APM is like a real time imposing a time limit to each move, like in Chess.
For Over-Hype/Impressive point. It is difficult. Both can be true. And everyone on the internet has different thresholds for what they think is over-hype and what is impressive. AI seems overwhelmed with both sides right now. Seemingly new miracles every day, and also over-hyped companies pumping their stock by adding an AI sticker to every product.
I just say, those AlphaStar matches were like 5 years ago, and they still blow me away.
Hard to imagine what could be possible, with this latest release in this post from deepmind.
Plug into a camera, on a robot, with a gun, and tell it the world is just a 3d game.