A Poker-Playing Robot Goes To Work for the Pentagon (wired.com) 68
In 2017, a poker bot called Libratus made headlines when it roundly defeated four top human players at no-limit Texas Hold 'Em. Now, Libratus' technology is being adapted to take on opponents of a different kind -- in service of the US military.
From a report: Libratus -- Latin for balanced -- was created by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University to test ideas for automated decision making based on game theory. Early last year, the professor who led the project, Tuomas Sandholm, founded a startup called Strategy Robot to adapt his lab's game-playing technology for government use, such as in war games and simulations used to explore military strategy and planning. Late in August, public records show, the company received a two-year contract of up to $10 million with the US Army. It is described as "in support of" a Pentagon agency called the Defense Innovation Unit, created in 2015 to woo Silicon Valley and speed US military adoption of new technology.
[...] Sandholm declines to discuss specifics of Strategy Robot's projects, which include at least one other government contract. He says it can tackle simulations that involve making decisions in a simulated physical space, such as where to place military units. The Defense Innovation Unit declined to comment on the project, and the Army did not respond to requests for comment. Libratus' poker technique suggests Strategy Robot might deliver military personnel some surprising recommendations. Pro players who took on the bot found that it flipped unnervingly between tame and hyperaggressive tactics, all the while relentlessly notching up wins as it calculated paths to victory.
From a report: Libratus -- Latin for balanced -- was created by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University to test ideas for automated decision making based on game theory. Early last year, the professor who led the project, Tuomas Sandholm, founded a startup called Strategy Robot to adapt his lab's game-playing technology for government use, such as in war games and simulations used to explore military strategy and planning. Late in August, public records show, the company received a two-year contract of up to $10 million with the US Army. It is described as "in support of" a Pentagon agency called the Defense Innovation Unit, created in 2015 to woo Silicon Valley and speed US military adoption of new technology.
[...] Sandholm declines to discuss specifics of Strategy Robot's projects, which include at least one other government contract. He says it can tackle simulations that involve making decisions in a simulated physical space, such as where to place military units. The Defense Innovation Unit declined to comment on the project, and the Army did not respond to requests for comment. Libratus' poker technique suggests Strategy Robot might deliver military personnel some surprising recommendations. Pro players who took on the bot found that it flipped unnervingly between tame and hyperaggressive tactics, all the while relentlessly notching up wins as it calculated paths to victory.
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Shall we play a game? (Score:2)
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You can't do the same quite as easily with a military bot though. Sure you can have it play against humans in field exercises, but you're having it play against your own army. In a certain way you're actually creating the best possible bot your enemy could want
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Consider the politics with the US Army, Navy, NSA, CIA, special forces, other US intelligence contractors.
The math smarts and skills needed, the level of fitness.
Political changes to the demographics, fitness, quotas, virtue signalling.
The ability to attract people with smarts and sports skills. To make the US intelligence community take on a different demographics.
The IQ level and the trust placed
Possibility to refuse orders vital (Score:2)
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Generations only want to support their side of US politics.
The quality of raw intelligence they hold back and pass on depends on their political views.
Too many split loyalties, people of another nations faith, people of another nations politics.
Are totally supporting another faiths "freedom fighters" and don't mind using up the US mil to support the "freedom fighters".
Its then the Army and Navy who gets sent on fa
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All hail President Libratus (Score:2)
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Well, he's pretty used to playing va banque...
should not Bezos always win in poker? (Score:2)
Obviously I have very little idea of how poker works.
Professor Falken was unavailable for comment (Score:3)
Sometimes I feel like the generation in power in both Silicon Valley and Washington, DC have forgotten (or never watched enough) dystopian 1970s and early '80s sci-fi.
SkyNet, VIKI, MCP, Colossus had to start somewhere (Score:2)
Poker seems as good a place as any. But I hope we've learned not to give it the keys to the nukes.
Bad summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but that's a misleading summary for technical news. Libratus did some pretty good playing, but saying it beat four top human opponents is extremely misleading.
What it did do was play thousands of rounds one on one. With exceedingly large bankrolls compared to the size of the big blind that were reset after every hand. In other words, it never had to play with short stack, never had to worry that the opponent couldn't cover it's own bets, and that really long shots (which are easier for a computer to calculate) can be made to pay off if hit because of the size of the bankrolls were much larger than usual for the size bets being made. And was only one on one, so it had a minimum of unknown information, betting and bluffing. Hold 'em, so 5 common cars and only two hold cards it doesn't know. And thousands of rounds each, so any small edge would have time to multiply.
Now, it did do this against four top players (each against their own copy of Libratus). It really was quite an accomplishment. But it's not nearing the general poker imperfect-information feint-analyzing multiple-unknowns that the summary makes it out to be. Come on /., be News for Nerds. Get the tech details right.
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So, the computer is able to win, because it is optimized for counting cards, with "bluffing ratio" being one of the cards.
If war strategy is about being able to keep track of thousands of small details and their relative impacts, AI like this would be useful.
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You must watch a lot of movies. In a real poker game the chips on a table are already paid for, you don't have to worry about whether you or your opponent can cover a bet they make and any serious professional player will never play with money they can't afford to lose in that session. Most cash games are generally deep not short stacked. Heads up is a very common cash game format online, it't not some rare contrived idea that doesn't have a real world equivalent. Being a successful poker player isn't about looking for twitches in your opponents face, rather just a string of mathematical optimization calculations.
As an example: if I am faced with a bluff on the river my decision is not concerned about trying to figure out if my opponent is bluffing in this specific hand as I can't answer that due to their cards being unknown to me. My decision is based around working out approximately what % of the time a correct strategy would bluff in that instance, what the correct call / fold ratio is with a bluff catcher to that bluffing frequency and if I have noticed my opponent bluffing too much / not often enough so I can adjust my ratio to exploit them. That's precisely what this bot does except the bot does it far more accurately.
I love watching movies with poker, they are so funny. Or watching most of the poker shows on TV when that was big, since they just show the exciting hands and give casual players the wrong idea about how to play.
I don't have your claimed chops - I never supported myself via poker. But I think you're making some bad assumptions there. Let's check what I was saying that the /. summary was poor.
Libratus only played heads up. The summary implied it was playing five handed. These aren't the same.
It played 1
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Just to add I'm still not sure what you mean by "covering an all in". No limit hold em should really be table stakes hold em. The maximum you can lose in a hand is the amount you had in front of you at the start of a hand. If you start with 1000 and I start with 200 and you shove all in, I call with the 200 I'm playing with. I don't have to cover the full 1k to call.
As for heads up v 5 max, yeah, totally different games.
Implied pot odds.
Pot odds can normally have you stay in when you have less than a 50% chance to win, that's joe standard play. But there are times when you have a long shot to get the nuts where it's not just what's in the pot, but what more you expect you can get out of them. If they started then hand with 200 and only have 20 left, there's a lot less potential upside then if they started the hand with 1000 and have 820 left.
Not that you should call only if they go in for 820, but there are times that if
Re: Bad summary (Score:1)
Re: Bad summary (Score:1)
what a great time to be alive (Score:2)
we get both skynet & wopr irl
Re: what a great time to be alive (Score:1)