38 | New Scientist | 24 August 2019
Two minds are
better than one
Artificial intelligence is evolving,
says Douglas Heaven, and it will
soon change the way we think
L
IKE other human champions facing
a machine opponent, Grzegorz “MaNa”
Komincz rated his chances. “A realistic
goal would be 4-1 in my favour,” he told
an interviewer before the match.
One of the world’s best players of video
game StarCraft II, Komincz was at the height
of a successful esports career. Artificial
intelligence company DeepMind invited
him to face its latest AI, a StarCraft II-playing
bot called AlphaStar, on 19 December 2018.
Komincz was expected to be a tough
opponent. He wasn’t. After being thrashed
5-0, he was less cocky. “I wasn’t expecting
the AI to be that good,” he said. “I felt like
I was learning something.”
It was just the latest in a series of
unexpected victories for machines that
stretch back to chess champion Garry
Kasparov’s 1997 defeat by IBM’s Deep Blue.
In 2017, another of DeepMind’s AIs, AlphaGo
Master, beat the world number one Go player
a decade before most researchers predicted
it would be possible. The company’s AIs then
mastered chess and StarCraft – a game played
with dozens of different pieces with hundreds
of moves a minute.But this isn’t just a case of humans being
humbled by superhuman AI. The real story
is that each win gives us a glimpse of how AIs
will make us superhuman too. That’s because
thinking is set to become a double act. Working
together, humans and AIs will bounce ideas
back and forth, each guiding the other to
better solutions than would be possible alone.
The potential goes far beyond games.
The hope is that this teamwork will help
us make vital breakthroughs in energy
use, healthcare and more.
This is a vision promoted by DeepMind
co-founder Demis Hassabis. Many others
agree. “It will be an amazing extension of
thought,” says Anders Sandberg from the
Future of Humanity Institute at the
University of Oxford.
Komincz felt his defeat was instructive.
Another StarCraft II professional, Dario
“TLO” Wünsch, also beaten 5-0, felt the same.
“AlphaStar takes well-known strategies and
turns them on their head,” said Wünsch.
“There may still be new ways of playing the
game that we haven’t fully explored yet.”
Their comments echo those of a growing
number of defeated humans. Many are startled MI
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