Feature Artificial Intelligence

AI can learn real-world skills from playing StarCraft and Minecraft

Virtual gaming worlds are good test-beds for exploring, responding and adapting

Artificial intelligence gaming illustration

AI AT PLAY  Algorithms that play video games can pick up all kinds of skills.

Walter Newton

By Maria Temming

Dario Wünsch was feeling confident. The 28-year-old from Leipzig, Germany, was about to become the first professional gamer to take on the artificial intelligence program AlphaStar in the rapid-fire video game StarCraft II. Wünsch had been professionally playing StarCraft II, in which competitors command alien fleets vying for territory, for nearly a decade.