--- title: "DeepMind’s Gamer AI is Better At Co-op Mode Than Human Players" description: "While playing rounds of capture the flag in Quake III Arena, DeepMind's artificial intelligence was able to outperform human teammates." date: "2019-05-30" modified: "2019-05-30" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor.md" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/deepmind-multiplayer-gaming-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "DeepMind" - "the digest" - "video games" --- # DeepMind’s Gamer AI is Better At Co-op Mode Than Human Players ![While playing rounds of capture the flag in Quake III Arena, DeepMind's artificial intelligence was able to outperform human teammates.]() *\Image: DeepMind\* ## Capture the Flag It's old news that DeepMind's artificial intelligence has become a champion at video games like [StarCraft II]() and [Dota 2](). But now, the AI has figured out [how to ace cooperative multiplayer mode]() as well. While playing rounds of capture the flag in the classic first person shooter *Quake III Arena*, DeepMind was able to outperform human teammates — and with the reaction time slowed down to that of a typical human player. Rather than a number of AIs teaming up on a group of human players in a game of Dota 2, the AI was able to play alongside them as well. https://youtu.be/dltN4MxV1RI The AI taught itself the skill through a technique called reinforcement learning — essentially, it picked up the rules of the game over thousands of matches in randomly generated environments. ## Acing Multiplayer A [paper on their research]() was published today in *Science.* "How you define teamwork is not something I want to tackle," Max Jaderberg, a DeepMind researcher who worked on the project [told *The New York Times*](). “But one agent will sit in the opponent’s base camp, waiting for the flag to appear, and that is only possible if it is relying on its teammates." The researchers are hoping that training an AI to play multiplayer successfully could help in training other similar AI systems in the real world, such as helping human employees inside massive distribution centers. **READ MORE:** [DeepMind Can Now Beat Us at Multiplayer Games, Too]() \[*The New York Times*\] **More on DeepMind:** *[StarCraft Champion Trounced by AI: “Very Human Style of Gameplay"]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()