A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.

OpenAI bot beats Dendi at TI7

What this meme means

On Aug. 11, 2017, an OpenAI bot beat Dendi in a 1v1 Shadow Fiend showmatch at TI7. “Please stop bullying me!” became a meme.

Add your caption

The editor opens with this picture. You can download the finished meme as a PNG.

Report this meme

A showmatch on the KeyArena stage

The International 2017 was held at KeyArena in Seattle. On August 11, during the break before LGD vs Liquid, Danil “Dendi” Ishutin of Na'Vi took the main stage to play against a bot built by OpenAI. The match was covered by Shacknews, MCV/Develop and Inverse, and in Russian by cyber.sports.ru.

The format was simple: mid lane, mirror Shadow Fiend, standard 1v1 tournament rules, best of three. It was a one-on-one exhibition rather than a full five-on-five game.

Dendi's opponent was an unusual one. The bot had learned “from scratch” by playing against itself, and a week before the showmatch, according to Shacknews, it had already beaten SumaiL and Arteezy, so it took the stage without a single loss to a pro.

Two games and “Please stop bullying me!”

The bot won. In the first game it got 2 kills to Dendi's 1, and in the second Dendi conceded after early pressure. The 2–0 score comes from Inverse; Shacknews only says the bot won the best-of-three, without giving the score, and stresses in its headline that the bot remained undefeated.

Dendi commented on it all with humor. His lines “This guy is really scary” and “Please stop bullying me!” are quoted by Inverse.

Dendi's joking tone contrasted with the seriousness of the claims around the match: while the player was asking the bot to “stop bullying” him, the result was already being described as an AI victory over a pro, including by an OpenAI co-founder himself.

Musk, the crowd's reaction and “so much for Dendi”

OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, as Inverse reported, marked the result with the line “OpenAI first ever to defeat world's best players in competitive eSports.”

In Russian-language comments on cyber.sports.ru, the match was greeted with an ironic “so much for Dendi,” a short line that summed up the showmatch from the fans' point of view.

Mineski described a mix of excitement and gloom: some saw the match as a step forward for artificial intelligence, while others disliked seeing a pro lose to a program on the main stage of The International.

The bot vs the public and the road to OpenAI Five

After TI7, OpenAI let ordinary players take on the bot at a venue near KeyArena. The first 50 winners received a Shadow Fiend arcana. Cyber.sports.ru reported on this on August 15, 2017.

At the same time, OpenAI announced its next goal: a team of five bots, meaning a full five-on-five game instead of a mid-lane duel. That project later became known as OpenAI Five.

The public matches showed the flip side too: the bot that had beaten Dendi, SumaiL and Arteezy lost to ordinary visitors. They found unconventional tricks, such as abusing creep pulls.

The broadcast frame and example captions

The catalog image is a frame from the TI7 broadcast: a mid lane game is on screen, with a webcam in the corner showing Dendi in headphones.

These examples were made up for illustration: “When you practiced only against yourself and then walked onto the TI stage,” “Me after the first creep against the bot: please stop bullying me,” “AI years later: first Dendi, now my homework.”

Captions usually riff on Dendi's quote, the bot's training “against itself” and any situation where a human loses to an algorithm.