Starcraft II has graduated from becoming just a game to becoming a tool that would advance artificial intelligence. That belief is not just wishful thinking because Google and a lot of scientists agree.
A research scientist at Google's Deep Mind revealed in a recent interview that Blizzard will release and API made especially for AI research in Starcraft II.
Oriol Vinyals said that Starcraft II is the perfect venue to test the capabilities of artificial intelligence because it has features that hides elements, such as terrains and resources, from the API.
Starcraft II has the perfect set-up to push the learning capabilities of the API to develop human-like behavior and responses since Starcraft players have to make immediate decisions and create strategies based on the environment they are in and the opponents they face.
Vinyals added that Starcraft II possesses the complexities they need to test the algorithms they have that were otherwise difficult to perform many years back. He was also quick to add that they are not sure what the outcome of the testing will be.
"It is treating the data in the game as a visual format, so that a learning AI can take in this information and actually start playing like a humans. The reason for the excitement is that we’re talking about a neural network and deep learning as the next step. We don't actually know what the outcome will be," he added.
Vinyals has high hopes, one of which is the possibility that the API can learn something unscripted but something new just by watching how the players play and make decisions in the game.
To make the experiment a success, Vinyals is encouraging fellow developers to share their knowledge and add their ideas in the process given the fact that the API has an open nature.
