Automaton 2000 Micro - Dodging Siege Tanks
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in StarCraft and AI threads as a vivid example of superhuman micro and of machine speed advantage over humans.
What it is
A StarCraft 2 custom-map demo where a bot controls 100 zerglings against 20 sieged tanks and dodges the splash damage, leaving 19 survivors. The code was written in Blizzard's World Editor.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2016 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites Monory · 2016-03 · on “DeepMind Challenges for StarCraft”
Well, anyone who says that advantage in micromanagement is not a big thing should see "Automaton 2000" videos. Given that automaton is a map script and thus can have virtually unlimited APM, it beats people from a horribly disadvantageous positions (40 banelings vs 21 marine [1], or 100 zerglings vs 20 sieged tanks [2]). [1]: [LINK] [2]: [this video]
Cites vinchuco · 2016-09 · on “Deep Reinforcement Learning to Play StarCraft”
That's incredible. The speed advantage here: [this video] Brings to mind the power of high frequency trading
Cites danielvf · 2016-09 · on “Deep Reinforcement Learning to Play StarCraft”
And as cool as that is, this is even more terrifying, as a hundred zergslings dodge seige tank cannons and destroy them. [this video] It's enough to make you scared for the future of humanity.
Cites lanius · 2016-11 · on “DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment”
Unfortunate. I personally would love play against an AI with strong game sense as well as insane micro a la [this video]
Cites trjordan · 2016-11 · on “DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment”
A big part of Starcraft is that certain units counter other units. Tanks counter zerglings, because they do splash damage to a bunch of them at once. Here's what you can do with infinite APM: [this video] It's just broken. It's not even the same game.
Cites mmanfrin · 2016-11 · on “DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment”
Really rudimentary AIs are already significantly beyond the skill of humans (in terms of micro, at least). [this video]
Cites imaginenore · 2016-11 · on “DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment”
AI already beats humans at StarCraft, not because it's smarter, but because it can control all the units simultaneously. [this video] [LINK] [LINK]
Cites nickpsecurity · 2016-11 · on “Show HN: DeepRhyme (D-Prime) – Generating dope rhymes with machine learning”
It's possible but it's a lot more context-driven than you think with a human involved. The bots do great against each other with their strategies and muscle-memory stuff. Throw a human in the mix, they start noticing patterns in how the units are managed, what strategies are likely, etc. They've exploited these in the competitions to hilarious effect. Here's the main site on prior work & results at the competitions: [LINK] Here's a few examples of how the muscle-memory approach, esp if focused on unit vs unit, can fail against humans. " In this example, Bakuryu (human) notices that Skynet's units will chase his zerglings if they are near, and proceeds to run around Skynet's base to distract