[Courtesy of Blizzard]
An artificial intelligence program made by a South Korean university research team will test skills with two human players in a tournament of StarCraft, a PC real-time strategy game which once led a syndrome in South Korea.
The duel between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) next will be hosted next month by Seoul's Sejong University. Its research team has developed an AI program named after a symbolic Starcraft character, Xel'naga. The university did not disclose the names of human Starcraft players.
"We will test the performance of Xel'naga in matches against humans," said a university official. "It is capable of learning new strategies through matches."
Xel'naga has been ranked third in an AI StarCraft tournament held at the US Computations Intelligence in Games in 2011. The competition tests AI programs in various types of video games through tournaments and matches.
AI-related technology became one of South Korea's all-time hot topics since March last year when Google's AlphaGo clashed with Lee Sedol in an iconic showdown in the ancient Chinese board game of Go. AIphaGo scored a 4-1 victory against the legendary human contender.
Sejong's research team admitted that Xel'naga is not yet skillful enough to beat a human opponent but remained confident AI would get better. "Just like AlphaGo, which is the result of countless research and development, we expect our AI to make great improvements in near future."
Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
