AI beat humans in scheming at game Diplomacy
Even in our beloved human pastime, scheming, we are under threat. Artificial intelligence appears to be better able than humans to negotiate strategically, at least in the game setting of the board game Diplomacy. Professor Jaap van den Herik predicted in 2016 that AI would be able to beat humans with Diplomacy within 20 years. It turns out that this has already been achieved within six years…
The artificial intelligence CICERO, developed by Facebook, excuse me, Meta, participated undercover in online Diplomacy tournaments. With that, CICERO scored more than double the average score of human players and was in the top 10 of players who had played more than one game. In total, the artificial intelligence participated in 40 games, in which 82 human opponents participated. The players didn’t realize they were playing against a computer.
This is an extremely fine achievement. In fact, this artificial intelligence passed the Turing test, at least in the limited context of a game. And did the artificial intelligence understand people’s motives well.
With their achievement, the researchers made it to the scientific top journal Science. And probably a certain learned gentleman in Leiden would not have been able to suppress a sardonic smile…
The rules of the game Diplomacy
The board game Diplomacy is set in early 20th century Europe. The aim is to try as the leader of a country to take control of the entire continent, or at least to become the dominant power in the continent. There are seven empires, Austria-Hungary, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire (in the game these have their modern names).
Unlike most board games, everyone makes a move at the same time in Diplomacy. At the start of each round, you simultaneously place secret orders for your armies, which are executed simultaneously with the orders of others.
The map is divided into provinces, pieces of territory that you have to conquer. You conquer water with a fleet, you conquer a piece of land with a land army (or a fleet, if it is on the coast). You can occupy a piece of territory if you get more support from neighboring armies than the opponent. That support can also come from others, and that’s where it gets interesting, of course.
The interesting part of Diplomacy is the negotiation. This can be done at any stage of the game. When you team up with each other, you can take out certain players, until of course you take out each other. Because only one can win a game of Diplomacy…
