Carnegie Mellon's Poker-Playing AI Loses Tournament
Claudico, an artificial intelligence (AI) program created at Carnegie Mellon University finished
in second-to-last place in the "Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence" exhibition
tournament that began on April 24 at Rivers Casino in Pennsylvania, but the
difference in score is not large enough to be statistically significant,
according to information from the university.
During the two-week tournament, Claudico played 20,000 hands of poker with
each of four of the world's best players of Heads-Up No-Limit Texas Hold'em.
"Bjorn Li had an individual chip total of $529,033, Doug Polk had $213,671 and
Dong Kim had $70,491. Jason Les trailed Claudico by $80,482," stated a news
release from Carnegie Mellon. No actual wagering took place during the
tournament, but the four professional players earned appearance fees based on
their performance.
While the results of the tournament were not statistically significant, they
did provide Claudico's developers with a plethora of data to improve its
algorithms. The scientists plan to use the 80,000 hands of data to train and
test future iterations of the AI program.
One area for improvement is the program's betting logic. "Where a human
might place a bet worth half or three-quarters of the pot, Claudico would
sometimes bet a miserly 10 percent or an over-the-top 1,000 percent," stated
the news release.
While the scientists are striving to develop software that can beat humans
at poker, the end-goal of the endeavor is to develop artificial intelligence
that can make good decisions in the face of incomplete information. Poker is an
ideal testing ground for that type of AI because the game requires players to
mislead their opponents. If it can learn to detect deceptions such as bluffing
and show play, it can learn to help people solve problems.
"Beating humans isn't really our goal; it's just a milestone along the way,"
said Tuomas Sandholm, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who has
led development of Claudico, in a prepared statement. "What we want to do is
create an artificial intelligence that can help humans negotiate or make
decisions in situations where they can't know all of the facts."
Judging by the advances the scientists have made over the last eight months
since Claudico's predecessor, Tartanian7, competed in a poker tournament, they
believe their AI may be able to outwit the world's best players in as little as
one year.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at leilameyer@gmail.com.