Coliseum

We’ve seen AI programs in traditional fighters like Dantarion’s KenBot and ToolAssisted’s army of bots, but we’ve yet to see AIs deployed to compete in platform fighters. Well, a team of graduate students at MIT have created a special AI which, through the use of deep learning techniques, has adapted and learned to play Super Smash Bros. Melee at a competitive level.

Starting with the in-game AI as a training partner, this AI had learned to beat its computer opponent within a few hours and within a few more weeks of practice, it was able to defeat power ranked players in friendly sets. The research team, led by Vlad Firoiu, had the AI learn Melee with Captain Falcon by playing repeated sets on Battlefield. With Falcon’s lack of projectile moves and Battlefield’s simple layout, the research team was able to effectively track the AI’s progress as a player, eventually getting to a stage where it could hold its own against actual pro players.

Taking it to two tournaments, the Falcon-bot was able to beat players like fellow Falcon Tempo|S2J, Mafia, Slox, Kage, Boxr|Zhu and Gravy. While the bot was responsive when players fought it like a human opponent, the bot would often fail spectacularly if it encountered a situation it had never seen before. Against one player who simply crouched at the edge of Battlefield, the bot started to “behave very oddly, refusing to attack and eventually KOing itself by falling off the other side of the stage.” According to Firoiu, the bot had only played previous versions of itself before going into a tournament setting with a real player, so it “never encountered such a degenerate strategy” in its training. Moreover, the Falcon-bot performed noticeably worse on different stages and against new characters, as it simply had not learned the matchups and developed suitable counter-measures.

The whole report on the AI’s development is a fascinating read, as it shows just how the system was eventually able to transfer information it had learned from playing Falcon, in order to learn how to play other characters. I think the Melee Gods are still safe from the AI uprising–for now, at least.

Source: Cornell University Library via New Scientist