15 years ago, a StarCraft gaming tournament offered $500 for first place prize, $250 for second, $150 for third, and $100 for fourth. Players finishing fifth through eighth were offered 25 bitcoin each. The organizer valued bitcoin at approximately one dollar, making each bitcoin prize worth about $25. Players were told to research the currency themselves: “YOU have to research them, do not ask me.” As of today, each bitcoin prize would be worth $2,000,000 at current market prices.

Tonight I lost 4 of 5 games of Starcraft II 3v3. My allies thought I sucked and told me so. And I didn’t tell them to fuck off and die, rage quit, or backstab them. This must be what maturing feels like.

There was a time when Age of Empires, StarCraft, UO, EverQuest, and Counter-Strike were so popular that many high school students skipped class to stay in internet cafes. My high school's solution was to build an internet cafe at school, managed by students, so teachers could always know where to find their students. 😆

Half of CT grew up playing RuneScape, the other half grew up on StarCraft, including me. They’re bringing it back as an open world shooter, something they tried to do decades ago with ‘ghost’. 2030 will be glorious.

Games have been an important testbed for our AI research for over 15 years. 🎮 From mastering Atari to reaching Grandmaster in StarCraft II, they have driven some of our biggest AI breakthroughs. Our work with SIMA taught agents how to understand 3D worlds, but learning to navigate real human dynamics takes a living, persistent universe. Through our research partnership with @FenrisCreations, we’re exploring how to tackle open challenges in AI: 🔵 Continual learning to acquire new skills without forgetting past knowledge. 🔵 Deep memory systems that store and retrieve information far beyond today’s context windows. 🔵 Long-horizon planning over weeks, months, or years. 🔵 Multi-agent dynamics spanning cooperation, negotiation, economics, and emergent behaviors. Our long-term goal is to use AI to discover entirely new gameplay experiences in partnership with game developers – making games more accessible and personalized – while applying what we've learned to problems in the real world and scientific discovery. Find out more →