AI Sweeps TI8 Dota 2 Champion OG, Makes Surprise Use Of Buybacks

OpenAI Five has beaten TI8 champion OG in a recent Dota 2 match-up held last April 13 in San Francisco. The AI team took down OG 2-0 in a best-of-three match.

In the first game, OpenAI used Sniper, Gyrocopter, Crystal Maiden, Death Prophet, and Sven. OG, meanwhile, would have Earthshaker, Witch Doctor, Viper, Shadow Fiend, and a mid Riki.

At the start, OpenAI employed an aggressive tactic going for a Gyrocopter and Sven combo in the top lane. OpenAI faced losses with this decision, but made adjustments and brought in the Crystal Maiden. What turned the game around was a surprise move with the AI immediately going for buybacks.

According to OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Greg Brockman, the decision to make use of buybacks is not really that surprising considering that the AI generally favors tactics that result in short-term gains. This is in contrast to how human teams play and implement long-term planning.

In the game at hand, the buyback decisions favored AI with OG conceding and calling GG just below the 40-minute mark.

For the second game, OpenAI again used the Gyrocopter and Sven combo with Crystal Maiden as support. It chose Witch Doctor and Viper mid. OG, meanwhile, would go for Earthshaker, Sniper, Death Prophet, Slark, and Lion.

This game was not as exciting as the first one, with the AI doing its usually aggressive strategy and OG doing little in preventing the AI from getting advantage. The game wrapped up within 20 minutes.

While one could argue that OpenAI had the advantage given that certain conditions needed to be met, it is still a good evidence of how far the AI has gone. In fact, according to Brockman, despite being in existence for only 10 months, OpenAI Five has played around 45,000 years of Dota 2 games.

During Ti8, OpenAI suffered defeat twice. First at the hand of paiN Gaming and second against a team of Chinese Dota 2 players.

The OpenAI research team has said that it will no longer conduct any public demonstrations. However, the team plans to release software that will allow humans to play with the OpenAI in real time. The research team is also releasing a platform it calls the Arena. Here players can go against OpenAI and see how they fare. It is available for three days beginning April 18.

The special event had William "Blitz" Lee, Jorien "Sheever" van der Heijden, and Kevin "Purge" Godec, serving as desk hosts. Commentators were Austin "Capitalist" Walsh and Owen "ODPixel" Davies.