First AI crushed human gamers, now it’s coaching them

This year we’ve heard a lot about organisations developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents that can not just beat the best human gamers at games like Chess, Dota 2, Poker, or Starcraft, but also AI’s that are helping the US military play wargames, and even using human gamers brainwaves to help them train swarms of military robots in the art of strategy before they go into war. All of which is some of the less bizarre and surreal stuff …

I’ve long been saying that while most news companies are focused on AI’s downsides, such as its seemingly ceaseless quest to make people redundant, from managers, surgeons, and teachers, to insurance brokers, newscasters, professional drivers, and sheep herders, that there are significant upsides too.

For one, AI’s are now at the point where they can make their own knowledge because the way they learn is fundamentally different to the way humans learn, so it’s inevitable that at some point we’ll start seeing human learning being augmented by AI which, in turn, will help us humans learn new things in new ways faster, increasingly AI, and our smart devices, are becoming our second brains. And as I’ve talked about several times in my keynotes this union will help unlock and unleash our own human potential in amazing new ways.

For example, what happens if the same AI’s that are beating us also help us learn new strategies, help us identify weaknesses in our strategies, and improve our plays so we can up our proverbial game?

Well, now a company out of Turkey is doing just that after Falcon AI announced their AI is now helping gamers develop skills and tactics by analysing and reporting on their playing style, and pinpointing strengths and weaknesses.

Falcon AI has developed SenpAI, an AI that enables E-Sport players develop their tactics and playing style in a bid to push the envelope in the competitive gaming world.

E-Sports, like Riot Games, attract more than 450 million enthusiasts and viewers annually, generating nearly $1.1 billion in revenue per year . For example, 200 million viewers followed the 2018 League of Legends World Championship making it one of the world’s most watched sport events.

SenpAI is a player’s personal artificial intelligence coach which “utilises state-of-the-art AI methods to run a deep analysis of users' playing style, pinpointing their strengths and weaknesses.”

“Users gain access to a personalised library of AI-generated video clips from professional matches, all tailored to their interest while maximizing their learning potential,” according to the website.

The co-founder of Falcon AI, Berk Ozer, says their plan is to help E-sport gamers with a tool which will help them improve their weaknesses in games like League of Legends, Valorant, and DOTA 2.

“We founded Falcon AI in 2017. Our main aim was to improve our AI capabilities. Seeing the high demand in esports, we decided to focus on it completely,” said Ozer. “When I say E-sports, people may misunderstand me. We are not focusing on only real professionals. Our focus includes both professional gamers and up-and-coming gamers who just want to improve their skills,” he added.

The program works by first first analysing players’ match data and after evaluating the data it will make recommendations, analyse and provide additional information about the game and their gameplay.

“For example, when a player is about to begin a match, we provide them crucial information such as which champion will suit their skills better or which champion will be more beneficial in their efforts to defeat the opponent team,” he added.

SenpAI can also compare between users and determine whose skills and playing styles are similar to theirs. Afterwards, the program shows the users how a professional E-sport player, whose style is similar to another user, chooses items and other selections within the game. Ozer also said SenpAI is not cheating software but it mainly focuses on just giving pre-match and post-match analysis for gamers.

“Our goal is to make this product, which was developed by Turkish engineers, globally successful. Our Turkish engineers are developing SenpAI.gg, and we are here in the United States for marketing purposes,” said Ozer, who then quickly added that ultimately he wants to turn the company into a household name.