Tic tac toe, checkers, chess, go, poker. Artificial intelligence rolled over each of these games like a relentless tide. Now Google’s DeepMind is taking on the multiplayer space-war videogame StarCraft II. No one expects the robot to win anytime soon. But when it does, it will be a far greater achievement than DeepMind’s conquest of Go—and not just because StarCraft is a professional e-sport watched by fans for millions of hours each month.

Get in-depth coverage of current and future trends in technology, and how they are shaping business, entertainment, communications, science, politics, and society.

Advertisement