back to article Cache flush: AI poker bot to compete against top players in tourney

Poker is the next game for AI to beat. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed Libratus, a computer program that will go head to head with top poker players at Rivers Casino, Pittsburgh, beginning next week. The hype around AI has been bubbling away for a while within the tech industry, and was brought to …

  1. Blofeld's Cat
    Pint

    Hmm...

    "... Poker poses a far more difficult challenge than these games, as it requires a machine to make extremely complicated decisions based on incomplete information while contending with bluffs, slow play and other ploys ..."

    "Poker? Is that the game where one receives five cards, and if there's two alike that's pretty good, but if there's three alike that's much better? "

    [Explaining why he had shot his opponent] "He was cheating and I can't abide a cheat. I'm a broad-minded man, gents, and I don't object to nine aces in one deck, but when a man lays down five aces in one hand... Besides, I know what I dealt him."

    W C Fields, Tillie and Gus (1933)

  2. frank ly

    "Libratus"

    I said 'poker player', not 'piano player'!

    On a more serious note, watch out for Carnegie Mellon researchers showing signs of increased disposable income. Do they have ethical guidelines for pitting their research machines against humans in online poker games?

    1. Roq D. Kasba

      Re: "Libratus"

      How is the meatspace player supposed to know when an AI is bluffing? Will it have a tell it controls (flashing red led gives me away every time!)?

      I just don't see how this could be a "fair" game? Poker isn't a game of playing cards, it's a game of playing people...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AI + Poker!?!?!?!

    *ZZZZzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZ*

    Whoa! You startled me there. I was just dozing off dreaming of AI and Poker and well, I just fell asleep at the keyboard. *stretches* Whoo. Where was I? Oh yeah, the buzzword of 2016 paired with the sheer determination of nothingness that is watching other people play a game of cards.. well, count me... *ZZZZzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZ*

    Whoa! Where am I?

  4. Clive Galway

    Starcraft?

    Surely an AI could gain a significant advantage over a human in terms of speed of play.

    No human could issue orders as fast as an AI (Top SC players are blazingly fast, but not *that* fast), so I do not see this as a fair match - the decision making probably would not need to be that good, as the AI could micromanage every unit everywhere on the map simultaneously.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Starcraft?

      Is it just me, or does a Starcraft AI already exist in the form of the game's inbuilt AI, it beats me often enough!

  5. Brian Miller

    Real Turing test, please?

    I want to see the outcome of a real Turing test, what was specified by Alan Turing. I.e., a room full of people trying to figure out not if the person behind the door is a human, but the difference between a woman, a man pretending to be a woman, and an AI pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.

    Then for the bonus round, two of the people will be mental patients, and one AI. Yes, the AI will have to successfully pass itself of as a loony.

  6. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Poker tell

    Libratus' CPU fan kicks into high speed when he gets a good hand.

    1. JulieM Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Poker tell

      That phrase could successfully be employed as a euphemism worthy of the late, great Lester Haines.

      Have one in his memory.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Poker tell

      Dammit I'm going to have to watch Silent Running again, I think Dewey taps his toe

  7. AceRimmer1980
    Terminator

    AI Poker player?

    I am a Frenchman.

  8. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    A system specifically designed for one specific task is really good at it - what a surprise! Okay, I'm not trying to ridicule the research. A lot of work goes into this, and a lot of good ideas emerge. But it's still a long way from putting the "I" in "AI". When the chess-bot and the go-bot and the poker-bot can play a game of Monopoly together without any instructions other than the rulebook that comes with the game, then we're getting close. When one of them comes up with a new game on it's own, we should be there. And right now we're not.

  9. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Does it get to shuffle and deal?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "It’s an ongoing problem experts are trying to tackle with the idea of transfer learning - a process where AI should be able to apply previously learnt knowledge to a solve a new, related task."

    It seems most humans are still to learn how to transfer knowledge from one task to another...

  11. Ian Michael Gumby
    Big Brother

    This spells the death of internet poker...

    Think about it.

    Do you know if your opponent is human or a machine?

    If the machines win out... you just set up your own AI poker bot to play online several games at a time...

    If it wins out... you're rich until you're caught.

    1. find users who cut cat tail

      Re: This spells the death of internet poker...

      You almost make it sound as if the death of internet poker was a bad thing. There are fields where the rise of AIs (and, more often, ‘‘AIs’’) makes me worried but internet poker is not among them.

    2. Roq D. Kasba

      Re: This spells the death of internet poker...

      Internet poker has always been a bad idea. At the moment you have no idea if you're playing an "honest" game, or if one of the other players represents the house and can openly see your cards.

  12. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    Hmmm....

    Being a poker player myself, although preferring real cash games to internet based ones, I'd be interested in understanding what boundaries the machine AI is basing its game on. If its primary decision making logic is based on getting the maths and probabilities right based on previous betting patterns, as well as the potential number of "outs" based on cards left in the deck etc - then I'm not sure where the AI is in this AI poker bot. These elements AFAIA have already been conquered and are already in play in the internet poker world seeing as that "physical" element is removed when playing online.

    If the AI is taking on board the physical inputs as well i.e. facial recognition, posture, emotional cognition etc etc then that would be very interesting to follow.

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