Just Months Old, a Game-Playing A.I. Takes on the World

Forget chess. OpenAI Five wants to beat humanity at a far more complex challenge.

VANCOUVER, BC — Aug. 22, 2018: A general view of a match on day 3 of The International 2018 Dota 2 Championships. Photo by Jeff Vinnick/Getty

Competition between humans and artificial intelligence (A.I.) usually plays out in research papers. Occasionally, there’s a public performance of a game of chess or Go in front of a staid crowd.