Update: And that's game, with the AI victorious in two rounds out of three. However, the show's still going on Twitch with OpenAI explaining more about how they built and tested their team, and what's next for them.
Original story: Research institute OpenAI, which Elon Musk co-founded in 2015, is set to send its super-smart self-taught Dota 2 bots to The International 2018 later this month to take on a team of experienced pros. Today, those bots are playing a benchmark match against five top players, including former pros, casters and analysts. The action will stream live on Twitch from 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET/8:30pm BST. Click here to watch.
The human team is made up of Blitz, Cap, Fogged, Merlini and Moonmeander, with commentary from Purge and ODPixel.
The bot team, called OpenAI Five, has certainly had enough practice to hold its own: it has been playing 180 years' worth of games against itself every day, picking up the intricacies of the MOBA along the way.
OpenAI's 1v1 bot beat pro player Danil "Dendi" Ishutin at last year's The International, and the institute says the learning process for OpenAI Five is much more complex, requiring 256 GPUs and 128,000 CPU cores.
If you're interested, it's worth reading OpenAI's blog post on the challenges its Five team faces, including the complex rules of Dota 2, and the fact that, at any given time, a hero could have more than 100,000 possible actions open to them.
