This one is a little scary to me. They are teaching machines to bluff (lie) better than humans?
In first, A.I. beats pros in six-player poker...
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The program first defeated two major poker champions, Darren Elias and Chris Ferguson, who each played 5,000 hands against it.
Pluribus then took on 13 pros in a separate experiment, five at a time. In a total of 10,000 hands, the program "emerged victorious," researchers said.
First, the program practiced against itself, learning little by little how to use poker moves to best advantage. Surprises cropped up.
"Its major strength is its ability to use mixed strategies," said Elias.
"That's the same thing that humans try to do. It's a matter of execution for humans -- to do this in a perfectly random way and to do so consistently. Most people just can't."
One surprise was that Pluribus used "donk betting" -- ending one round with a call and starting the next with a bet -- far more than would the pros, who traditionally see the move as a weak one. |
