Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!): The Diplomacy AI got a handle on the basics of the game, but didn’t ‘solve it’. It mainly does well due to avoiding common mistakes like eg. failing to communicate with victims (thus signaling intention), or forgetting the game ends after the year 1908. It also benefits from anonymity, one-shot games, short round limits etc.
Some things were easier than expected eg. defining the problem space, communications generic and simple and quick enough to easily imitate and even surpass humans, no reputational or decision theoretic considerations, you can respond to existing metagame without it responding to you. Others were harder eg. tactical and strategic engines being lousy (relative to what the author would have expected).
Overall the author did not on net update much on the Diplomacy AI news, in any direction, as nothing was too shocking and the surprises often canceled out.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The Diplomacy AI got a handle on the basics of the game, but didn’t ‘solve it’. It mainly does well due to avoiding common mistakes like eg. failing to communicate with victims (thus signaling intention), or forgetting the game ends after the year 1908. It also benefits from anonymity, one-shot games, short round limits etc.
Some things were easier than expected eg. defining the problem space, communications generic and simple and quick enough to easily imitate and even surpass humans, no reputational or decision theoretic considerations, you can respond to existing metagame without it responding to you. Others were harder eg. tactical and strategic engines being lousy (relative to what the author would have expected).
Overall the author did not on net update much on the Diplomacy AI news, in any direction, as nothing was too shocking and the surprises often canceled out.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)