OpenAI's Dota 2 Bots Pummel Top-Tier Human Players

A few weeks ago, we filled you in on OpenAI, a project funded by Elon Musk that pits a team of self-learning AI bots against human players in Dota 2. The machines continue to evolve -- good news for us humans, surely! -- and last weekend beat a quintet of meatbags that were near the top of the skill tree of Dota 2 players.

The teams played three matches, with the AI winning the first two and the humans taking the third. I watched the end of the second match, and it was pretty brutal, with the humans getting farmed left and right in a futile last-ditch attempt to keep the game going. Kotaku has more on the affair, and you can watch a replay of the whole thing on Twitch.

The human team consisted of "three former Dota 2 pros, one current pro, and a commentator." The final test will come at the Dota 2 International later this month, when OpenAI challenges a team consisting of the best players in the world. There are some limitations on the games, but it's still an impressive showing for our future robot overlords.