We’ve found that self-play allows simulated AIs to discover physical skills like tackling, ducking, faking, kicking, catching, and diving for the ball, without explicitly designing an environment with these skills in mind. Self-play ensures that the environment is always the right difficulty for an AI to improve.

Taken alongside our Dota 2 self-play results, we have increasing confidence that self-play will be a core part of powerful AI systems in the future.