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yeah thank you so much Greg and indeed

we are getting to it because about

what’s gonna happen today we are also

now joined by Brooke and David and David

I’m actually I’m gonna start with you

because I want to know the history of

the project it’s a project that’s been

going on for a while obviously we saw

most recently at t i8 but but talk to me

about the project in the history of it

yeah so we started this project about

two years ago in early 2017 we first

worked on 1v1 dota as a way to get

started just to get off the ground in

that ti toys house 2017 we were able to

beat the top pros at 1v1 dota then we

spent a while getting ready for five you

five and we started training open air

five in June 2018 by August 2018 we

played some tournaments and went to TI

ITI pain gaming beat us and was you know

open i was not yet ready to play it

better than per level it played pretty

well we were pretty happy with how it

went and now it’s been eight months

since then here we are opening five has

learned as grown has learned some new

stuff figured out these strategies and

we’re excited to see where it is now

what are the biggest changes that have

happened over the last eight nine months

so some of what we worked on was trying

to add more heroes to the pool it was it

was something that we definitely

attempted to address and we did manage

to see a lot of improvement there I just

kind of didn’t get to the level we

thought maybe og was going to play back

we also worked on a lot of research

improvements to just kind of create a

more fluid training process in the hopes

that we would be able to gain a lot of

performance from those metrics now let’s

say we’ve seen obviously the events

unfold already blitz you have experience

firsthand playing against AI both want

to be one and also in a team setting

what are you what do you expect it today

so I was the first person that played it

at ti right and I feel like I’m always

like the whipping boy like I got brought

in I got absolutely destroyed and that

was depressing and then they had me

played the five on five

it was I was casting it at first and

then they’re like would you like to play

against it I feel like I got trapped

again like I’ll stop it I was pretty

confident if I’m honest here III

remember I talked to guys write it plays

it like max 4k and I just got rekt but I

sort of played my teammates and now the

fact that you know I was able to beat

some teams that it was able to take pain

I think it was like a 40 minute game

that I casted I think it’s really

impressive

how about you purse with your experience

as well it’s definitely very interesting

to play against it we got to play it

match yesterday briefly and it doesn’t

really feel like the flashiest thing it

just kind of feels like it’s always

reacting perfectly to your movements

like at one point I tried to prevent you

from dying for the fifth time in a lane

fever and every time I would run at the

Earthshaker he would run away and then

I’d be like okay he’s wasting my time

when I’m run back and then it would

follow me it just kind of did that we

just kind of did this for a while and it

just feels really annoying it just feels

like a step ahead of you it’s not

necessarily super out playing you but

it’s always out playing you just because

they played so many matches so it’s

definitely interesting to play against

all right David how does AI work cuz you

know weird let’s say that he was

expecting that it’s a play at 4k level

we have experienced that it’s probably a

bit higher than that but how how does a

I played dota 2 yeah so it’s a little

bit different from how humans see it and

we have a slide to explain how the

opening I 5 interprets the game so

humans see this image on the left with a

nice picture of the characters walking

around the AI see the picture on the

right which is just a giant pile of

numbers and we know that some of these

numbers means a hero’s health or a some

characters position or the items in

someone’s inventory but all the AI sees

is this giant list of numbers it doesn’t

have any idea about the rules of dota to

begin with which what different items

are it just sees these different these

different numbers and has to figure out

what they mean so how did it get to

learn nota - is the can’t read yeah so

that’s kind of the question that we get

a lot and a lot of people will watch our

BOTS play dota and be like well what’s

the big deal I also learn how to play

dota and I think the difference is that

essentially that is that

the AI takes a completely different path

to get there it doesn’t get to read the

tool tips read about abilities watch

purge videos to figure out how to play a

new hero it’s essentially learning it

just by going into the game trying

something seeing what happens and even

further than that like let’s say you

have a new ability you’re trying to

learn and you know that it’s done so you

know there are other abilities that’s

done you know what that looks like you

know that it’s great for you if you’re

able to stun the enemy hero what the AI

does is they go in there they cast the

ability and they see that some numbers

changed and they don’t know if that’s

good or bad eventually they might learn

out they might learn that oh that hero

can’t move and they see that by it’s not

moving they have to kind of like

recognize that pattern and so that’s

kind of like how it builds on itself and

it has to do this all all the game

mechanics so it starting out is pretty

inefficient right it takes us a long

time to kind of even get it to last-hit

which is a pretty basic mechanic that

most people are able to pick up quickly

the upside of that is that this training

is all general so for example if we were

to take out the dota lair and swap in a

different environment such as the

robotic camp which I think we have a

slide floor to show and essentially you

you take this environment where you’ve

got the fingertip positions you’ve got

camera vision and things like that and

you can also translate that into these

numbers which is you can then feed into

the AI and then they will attempt to

solve that problem too so it’s something

they know how to put they don’t know

that they’re playing dota necessarily

they just know that they are solving a

task so opening I 5 is focused on dota 2

at the moment but what you’re saying now

is that the implications for for for use

outside of dota 2 that can have some

very big impacts on the world

yeah and that’s definitely one of the

reasons why for example we are still

working within a limited hero pool is

because there are changes like we could

learn a hero it’s not that we think that

it can’t be done it’s more that we are

looking about making the training

process general and making changes that

we think will will help overall working

on AI not just specific to dota how do

we think it’s gonna impact dota 2 I mean

there was definitely things that we

learned by watching the 1d ones for

example there were things like oh is it

worth it to use fairy fires just for

region or there’s other smaller get the

the mango like bring mangoes eat them

instantly your gold is lost but you have

mana back which ultimately helps you and

now when we see one we once that’s very

consistent it even happens in regular

games right now so there are little

advantages that you do get by watching

something very different play it from

outside the box basically it always

helps same thing happens in pro players

like if you see a pro player do

something new they’ve never thought it

before you’re willing to trust it

because it’s different it’s something

you respect doing it so it’s there’s

always going to be similar benefits to

is it is it gonna be coexisting or are

the AI taking over I don’t know about

that but there’s a lot that you can

learn like when when you play a high

level game with dota 2 and you see

somebody do something cool it should

intuitively make sense and the first

time I played the 1v1 bought like Kevin

said I was wondering I was still like on

a meta that was way too far behind like

I’d buy tangos and I’d buy clarity’s and

I’d realized that every single time I

did that I was playing slower and slower

and slower and so the only way to match

it was to copy it and so he started

developing this meta where it was pretty

much just salves and mangoes you didn’t

even buy any other items because it was

less efficient to buy other rate bands

or other boots in the shadowfiend versus

shadowfiend matchup you would just keep

varying region until somebody want or

lost and that’s something that’s

replicated nowadays not maybe not to

like that same extreme because you know

the game progresses past that 1v1 phase

but you’re still going for that quick

regen playing as fast as humanly

possible a quick question so based on

the current patch in some of the

previous tournaments we were playing on

an older version as the game but right

now we’re playing on the current version

of the game how difficult it is when a

new patch comes out for the for the bots

to it adjusted that you guys start off

from scratch or you take like the

previous knowledge and then let them

read them yeah so we take the previous

spot and just throw it in the new

environment we don’t tell it or anything

that changed but it eventually learns

that the numbers don’t change and quite

the way I thought they would change and

it slowly adapts it takes a week or a

few days after we’ve done the work to

write the update the code and make the

code good so how long have it they’ve

been training on the current patch it’s

is like a new patch comes out you guys

instantly put them to work to play or is

it like maybe at the late thing

typically it’s not instant just because

it’s work on our part we really don’t

know what another patch is gonna come

out after that

we don’t want to bring them up to speed

I think that they’ve been training on

this patch for at least a few weeks now

and there there has been some

interesting feedback from our test teams

who when we switched to a new patch they

for example when we switched in 721 the

AI started really liking viper and so we

asked like you know what were the

changes with Viper that they really

liked and they were like oh it was no

big deal I was like minor AoE

improvements and then a couple weeks

after that they’re like oh you can fight

for jungle jungle now it’s really really

strong and so it was kind of like they

they were talking to us and saying like

they’d catch on pretty quickly there’s

definitely some things that they have

more trouble like switching over to but

for the most part yeah one of the things

they have trouble switching to like

other more complicated heroes or

something yeah it’s typically when

abilities change they have a little bit

of trouble with that that’s kind of like

while it didn’t make it past our patches

just because there were there were

significant changes there so when they

have to relearn their playstyle

that becomes a lot harder for them now

today’s event is gonna be a three part

event we’re gonna start with with with

part one and David Carr part one is cool

competitor so what did open a I do to

prepare for today so when you have a

very high skill dota 2 bot you want if

you guys how good it is so the natural

thing to do is play against some of the

very best teams so we’ve invited og the

world champions from ti last year to

push our bots to limit and see just how

good it is so we’ll play a best-of-three

against them and see how it goes and

Brooke normally when a professional dota

2 team plays a tournament you know

there’s a little bit of screaming before

had a little bit of practice and opening

I did that too yeah so coming out of Ti

we played three other semi pro and pro

teams to kind of gauge where we’re at

because for the most part that is

training just with itself so it’s a

little bit hard to see once you put a

human team in there if it’s going to

play the same if it’s going to you know

have a lot of issues with it so

throughout the event wall we’ll talk

about the other teams that we played and

also go over how those games went yeah

that will be very exciting to see and

also exciting to see how og is gonna do

today because we will have ot playing on

stage against AI what uh what can we say

about og og obviously they want ei8 they

are back with Ana again

after a long hiatus they have shown that

with Anna back they are also back

qualifying for the major blitz looking

like like a very strong team again

yeah felt like they were I mean all

respect to iti ltw who they were using

as a stand-in but it felt like they were

just waiting for and it come back at

some point because I mean this guy it

just completes their lineup you can see

instantly that everyone’s a lot more

energized these guys want TI off of

maybe the most magical run that I’ve

ever seen before like that was the

underdog story of underdog stories for

them to go through what they had to go

through they force the game five against

LGD I don’t know how strong they are

right now I mean they were able to go

through which i think is the hardest

qualifier make it to the major I feel

like they’re coming into their own maybe

it’s a bad time for hoop in the i-5 to

play against them because I feel like

they’re peaking at the right moment I

mean you saw right there in terms of

overall winnings no tails got I mean

no-tell completes most of that but 17

million dollars for dota I think that

makes them like the second or third

highest team in terms of prize pool so

they’ve definitely been some of the most

storied teams they had crazy runs during

the major system when it first came out

they won the the vast majority of those

and winning TI this last year was really

the the key stone that they needed to be

like were probably the most winning team

of all time so it’s very exciting to

have them here it is very exciting to

have them here and I believe also we

have them are ready to take the stage