AIs Learning to Defeat Humans in Combat

(Photo Credit: OpenAI)

 

Elon Musk’s OpenAI has developed a team of five algorithms that can beat some of the best Dota 2 players in the world.

Researchers with the California-based OpenAI have put together a team of five algorithms, known as the OpenAI Five, which have begun defeating teams of human players in a popular combat video game.

11 Signs That America Has Already Gone Down The Toilet

Just when you think that the depravity of the United States cannot possibly get any worse, something else comes along to surprise us.  Many of the things that you are about to read about in this article are incredibly disturbing, but it is important that we face the truth about how far this nation has fallen.  There are times when I will be having a conversation with someone else about the state of our country, and the other person will say something like this: “Wow – America is really going down the toilet.”  At one time, I would have totally agreed with that.  But at this point I would have to say that we have already circled the bowl and have made it all the way through to the other end.  Our society is absolutely addicted to entertainment (most of which is utter trash), tens of millions of us are hooked on drugs (both legal and illegal), and we have murdered more than 56 million of our own babies.  Our financial system is consumed with greed, we treat our military veterans like human garbage, and most of our “leaders” in Washington D.C. are deeply corrupt.  In America today, 64 percent of all men view pornography at least once per month, it is estimated that one out of every four girls is sexually abused before they become adults, and we have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the entire industrialized world.  We like to think that we are an “example” to the rest of the world, but the only example that we are setting is a bad one.  The following are 11 signs that America has already gone down the toilet…

Video Games: The New American Pastime

Today’s food for thought:

As the Christian Science Monitor brings out, 183 million Americans play video games at least an “hour a day.” Virtually all Americans (97 percent) ages 12 to 17 play video games. And almost 5 million Americans play at least 40 hours a week—the equivalent of a full-time job.

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Millions of people live, breath and play in virtual worlds. It is not only young people either. Atari hit it big in the early 1970s. Today, one quarter of all gamers are over the age of 50.

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By the time the average American youth turns 21, he will on average have spent 10,000 hours playing video games over the course of more than a decade.

Consider that number. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-hour rule. To achieve mastery in any field of expertise, he explains, takes about 10,000 hours of practice over the course of about 10 years. Experts become experts because they abide by this rule. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good,” Gladwell writes. “It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

Imagine what those 5 million Americans who spend 40 hours a week playing video games could accomplish if they instead devoted that much work to something useful. In just five years, this country would have 5 million more master designers, craftsmen, engineers, pilots, scientists, builders, artists, architects, painters, geologists, farmers, inventors, poets, screenplay writers, opera singers, tuba players—the list goes on and on. Imagine how different America could be if the 183 million Americans who spend at least one hour a day playing video games did the same thing.

And now imagine the world we might live in if all these people took just a portion of that time and spent it with their families and taught their children how to become experts themselves.

What a different, more prosperous, more inspiring, more beautiful world we would live in. How would your life be different? Are you willing to change the course of your child’s life?

Many people look at America and decry its deficiencies. People see its economy collapsing. They see America’s waning influence and its growing list of enemies. They see the political fighting and dysfunction in Washington and a house divided among itself. They see a nation of eroding morals and common decency.

And they wonder, why are these things happening, and why doesn’t someone stand up and put this nation back on course?

Full article: Video Games: The New American Pastime (The Trumpet)