An AI bot has stunned the gaming world by beating a world superstar player at a championship competition.

Elon Musk's startup OpenAI produced the machine learning system that bested Danylo 'Dendi' Ishutin at the online multiplayer battle game Dota 2.

The victory came as a shock because, until now, it had not been thought possible for an AI to come close to winning against a skilled human opponent.

It represents a significant step forward in technology but was accompanied by a warning from Musk on the dangers of uncontrolled AI development.

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An AI bot has stunned the gaming world by beating a world superstar player at a championship competition. Elon Musk's startup OpenAI produced the machine learning system that bested Danylo 'Dendi' Ishutin at the online multiplayer battle game Dota 2 (pictured)

HOW DOES IT WORK? AI systems rely on artificial neural networks (ANNs), which try to simulate the way the brain works in order to learn. ANNs can be trained to recognise patterns in information - including speech, text data, or visual images - and are the basis for a large number of the developments in AI over recent years. Conventional AI uses input to 'teach' an algorithm about a particular subject by feeding it massive amounts of information. But a new breed of ANNs called Adversarial Neural Networks pits the wits of two AI bots against each other, which allows them to learn from each other. This is the system employed by OpenAI. Its bot kept on playing until it reached the skill level of the world's best Dota 2 players, which took around two weeks. Advertisement

Danylo 'Dendi' Ishutin, arguably one of the world's best gamers, was easily defeated by the Open AI bot during a side match at The International, Dota 2's world championship event, held in Seattle on Friday.

OpenAI was set up to promote and develop 'friendly' AI for the benefit of humanity as a whole.

Its bot challenged Dendi, who is a celebrity in the gaming community, to a best of five session to Dota 2.

The game involves 'capture the flag' type missions, where teams of players battle each other in an attempt to take down a building called an 'ancient' in their respective bases.

The bot beat the Ukrainian player in two short rounds, who then conceded defeat.

Writing on Twitter about the loss, Mr Ishutin said: 'Bot is really fun and challenging to play against.

'I am sure it is possible to beat it. But it has no room for even slight mistakes.'

AI systems rely on artificial neural networks (ANNs), which try to simulate the way the brain works in order to learn.

ANNs can be trained to recognise patterns in information - including speech, text data, or visual images - and are the basis for a large number of the developments in AI over recent years.

Conventional AI uses input to 'teach' an algorithm about a particular subject by feeding it massive amounts of information.

But a new breed of ANNs called Adversarial Neural Networks pits the wits of two AI bots against each other, which allows them to learn from each other.

This is the system employed by OpenAI.

The bot kept on playing until it reached the skill level of the world's best Dota 2 players, which took around two weeks.

Dota 2 (pictured) is an online multiplayer battle game that involves 'capture the flag' type missions

The game (pictured) pits teams of players against each other in an attempt to take down a building called an 'ancient' in their respective bases

Danylo 'Dendi' Ishutin (pictured), arguably one of the world's best gamers, was easily defeated by the Open AI bot

Speaking in a video uploaded to the company's blog, co-founder and chief technology officer Greg Brockman said: 'Our bot is trained entirely through self play.

'It starts out completely random with no knowledge of the world, and simply plays against a copy of itself, which means it always has an evenly matched opponent.'

Bots have previously beaten human opponents at strategic games like Chess and Go, but this is the first time that a master player of a massively complex video game like Dota 2 has been bested.

Bots have previously beaten human opponents at strategic games like Chess and Go, but Dota 2 is much more complex. Musk took to Twitter to promote the victory on Friday (pictured)

Dendi, who is a celebrity in the gaming community, lost two games in a best of five match, before conceding defeat. He also shared his thoughts about the bot on Twitter (pictured)

Musk took to Twitter to promote the victory, where he said: 'OpenAI first ever to defeat world's best players in competitive eSports. Vastly more complex than traditional board games like chess & Go.'

Following the match, he also warned that advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) pose more of a threat to humanity than North Korea.

'If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea,' Musk wrote on Twitter Friday.

Musk, 46, posted the ominous message after a war of words between North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump escalated this week.

'If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea,' Musk wrote on Twitter Friday.

Musk has consistently advocated for governments and private institutions to apply regulations on AI technology, arguing that controls are necessary in order protect machines from advancing out of human control.

'Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that's a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too,' Musk also tweeted on Friday night.

In 2016, Musk said during a media conference that human beings may eventually need to add a digital layer of intelligence to our brains in order to prevent robots from turning us into 'house cats,' according to Business Insider.

'I don't love the idea of being a house cat, but what's the solution? I think one of the solutions that seems maybe the best is to add an AI layer,' he said. 'A third, digital layer that could work well and symbiotically' with the rest of your body.

Musk said that a 'neural lace,' a concept that proposes turning the human mind into a wireless computer-brain system, may be necessary in order to keep up with rapidly advancing AI technology.

Musk theorised that if computers become smarter than people, they will treat human beings like 'pets,' choosing to breed docile individuals and eradicate violent ones.