Google’s DeepMind taught AI teamwork by playing Quake III Arena

Google’s DeepMind today shared the results of research and experiments in which multiple AI systems were trained to play Capture the Flag on Quake III Arena, a multiplayer first-person shooter game. An AI trained in the process is now better than most human players in the game, regardless of whether it’s playing with a human or machine teammate.

The AI, named For the Win (FTW), played nearly 450,000 games of Quake III Arena to gain its dominance over human players and establish its understanding of how to effectively work with other machines and humans. DeepMind refers to the practice of training multiple independently operating agents to take collective action as multi-agent learning.