Pro-'Dota 2' Players Fend off Elon Musk's AI Bots--for Now

One way to measure progress in artificial intelligence is to chart victories by algorithms over champions of increasingly challenging games--checkers, chess, and, in 2016, Go. On Wednesday, five bots sought to extend AI's mastery to e-sports, in the fantasy battle game Dota 2. They failed, as a team of pro gamers from Brazil called paiN defended humanity's honor--for now. A crowd of thousands in Vancouver's hockey arena watched the bots battle paiN over 52 tense minutes packed with spells and firebolts. The human-machine contest was a side event to The International, a Dota 2 tournament that boasts the biggest purse in e-sports, at $25 million. The five bots that lost Wednesday were created by OpenAI, a research institute cofounded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk to work towards human-level artificial intelligence, and make the technology safe.