Bots could beat humans within three years
Even the world's best players could find themselves on the losing side if robots continue to evolve at their current rate.
After enjoying recent success, Pennsylvania science students believe that, within the next year or two, pokerbots will be equipped with enough intelligence to beat even the world's top poker players.
The bold prediction follows this week's news that a bot designed at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US came first in a computer poker competition. Their creation, Baby Tartanian 8, topped the total bankroll category and came in third in the bankroll instant run-off, beating eleven other teams. Now creator, PhD student Noam Brown, believes that future generations of his creation could see off the top pros too.
As the bot's name suggests, this latest model is the eighth inclination of the machine and was developed from scratch as a successor to number 7, otherwise known as Claudico, who also competed favourably a year ago.
This year's model was developed after relative success at 2015's Brains vs. Artificial Intelligence exhibition, organised by the university, where top poker players were invited to compete against the bot. Although human earnings proved higher, the machines ran them so close that experts believe that any future improvements to algorithms and hardware should tip the scales in favour of the bots.
Upgrading the bot
Last year's data was used to upgrade number 8 after human feedback revealed what they considered to be the strengths and weaknesses of their mechanical opponents. For instance, Tartanian 7 often did things that humans wouldn’t do such as bet heavy on a very small pot or bet small on a large one, stumping the human counterparts.
Likewise, the bot's intelligence was designed to group together poker hands with which it was programmed to respond to in a certain way, causing it to misread the situation entirely.
After taking the feedback on board, moderations were made to develop the latest bot and, buoyed by this year's success, the creators have been encouraged enough to believe that future improvements should enable it to perform at higher levels before eventually beating the best mankind has to offer.
