---
title: "The Digest: Five AI Algorithms Worked Together to Beat Humans at a Strategy Game"
description: "A team of five algorithms, known as OpenAI Five, can now beat a team of five human amateur Dota 2 players and will attempt to beat pro players in August."
date: "2018-06-26"
modified: "2018-06-26"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-five-dota-2"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
tags:
  - "gaming"
  - "OpenAI"
  - "the digest"
---

# The Digest: Five AI Algorithms Worked Together to Beat Humans at a Strategy Game

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/dota-ai.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Valve/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

**HEADING FOR THE BIG LEAGUES.** On Monday, non-profit AI research company OpenAI published a [blog post](<https://blog.openai.com/openai-five/>) about OpenAI Five, a group of five neural networks designed to work as a team while playing the real-time computer strategy game called Dota 2. According to the post, OpenAI Five can now beat a team of five human amateur players at the game, albeit with specific restrictions placed on gameplay. In August, it will attempt to beat a team of professional Dota 2 players at The International (TI), an annual Dota 2 tournament hosted by the game's developer, Valve Corporation.

**TEAM ALGORITHM.** In Dota 2, two teams of five players battle to destroy the other team's "Ancient," a structure at the center of their base. Each player controls a different character, known as a "hero." These heroes have their own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, and a team's ability to cooperate is key to its success. The developers assigned each OpenAI Five algorithm a specific hero, placing [restrictions](<https://blog.openai.com/openai-five/#restricted>) on the characters to account for areas of the game they hadn't integrated.

**PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.** OpenAI Five trained first as individual algorithms in one-vs-one matches and then as a team by playing against itself and past versions of itself. As a team, it collected 180 years worth of experience during each day of training, eventually picking up on strategies typically used by professional Dota 2 players. None of the algorithms could communicate with one another — cooperation was simply one of each algorithm's incentives. This cooperation continued when a human player replaced one of the algorithms.

**THE HEROES WE NEED.** With OpenAI Five, we could be seeing a preview of the future of AI. In Dota 2, each algorithm has to choose between roughly 1,000 potential moves every one-eighth of a second — far more complex than a game like [Go,](<https://futurism.com/deepmind-never-found-the-limit-of-alphago-zeros-intelligence>) in which an AI has to choose between [250 moves at a time](<https://www.wired.com/story/can-bots-outwit-humans-in-one-of-the-biggest-esports-games/>). Algorithms usually don't operate as teams, either, but this Dota 2 project shows they're more than capable of cooperating with each other — and humans, too.

**READ MORE:** [OpenAI Five](<https://blog.openai.com/openai-five/>) \[OpenAI\]

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)