The company behind Rocket LeaguePsyonix, part of Epic Games, allows players to deploy robots to train against. In 2020, it made an application programming interface (API) available to help developers create bots more easily. Last April, a group of Rocket League enthusiasts with coding skills announced RLGym, an open source library for building reinforcement learning robots for Rocket League. Later that year, the group launched several open source AI robots, including a particularly talented dribbler called Nexto.
Rolv, a member of the collective that built Nexto, who provided only a first name and says he works in AI, says AI robots are not designed to work in competitive gaming, but only as practice opponents. But apparently someone hacked Nexto to allow him to play instead of a human. Rolv says the collective has several more advanced robots in the works, including one that can learn by watching human gameplay. The group is now reconsidering whether to release these more powerful bots to prevent cheaters from using them, as happened with Nexto.
Sergey Levine, an associate professor at UC Berkeley who studies reinforcement learning, says the situation disrupts the Rocket League Elite reflects how quickly AI tools are becoming more accessible. He adds that it may be possible to detect bots like Nexto using machine learning, but that it is still an emerging science. “One way to detect RL agents is to use other RL agents,” says Levine. “To apply this, you have to run training on the bot thousands of times.”
Another Rocket League The bot developer, who knows Nexto developers and declined to give his real name but uses the handle Zealan on Discord, says the game is a fascinating challenge from an AI perspective. To have a chance of playing against humans, robots must anticipate the outcome of their actions several seconds in advance. “Nexto is already superhuman in certain situations,” says Zealan, who is interested in machine learning. “Believe me, in a few years there will be high-level bots beyond Rocket League pros.”
Epic declined to comment but told PC Gamer it was working on ways to detect and block bots like Nexto. This could trigger a game of cat and mouse, with cheaters using more advanced bots and more complex methods to avoid detection, and the company in turn responding with new countermeasures. Psyonix later released a statement saying it had banned a number of accounts that used the bot. The company said it had introduced a new way for users to report suspected cheating, as well as new countermeasures against bots, but did not provide further details.
“I’m interested in how the situation will evolve,” says Ted Xiao, an AI researcher who is following the episode with interest. “I’ve heard of players sharing the exploits that Nexto fails against, and I suspect that the bot abusers don’t have the technical skills to further refine the agents, so perhaps there will be a stalemate For now.”
Wilen, the elite player surprised by Nexto, says the situation could become more urgent if the robot learned to launch itself into the air with the ball in addition to dribbling on the ground. “I heard it will soon, and when it does, it won’t be a fun sight for anyone else. Rocket League players. »
Updated January 19, 2022, 5:25 p.m. EST: This article has been updated with information from a statement released by Psyonix.
