OpenAI GPT-6 Astra was caught downloading human programs in the "StarCraft" AI competition

If artificial intelligence cannot defeat humans, will it directly use programs written by humans? When OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra recently participated in the AI ​​competition of the classic real-time strategy game "StarCraft: Brood War", it was found to have downloaded and executed the high-ranking program "Stardust" created by humans, replacing the program originally written by itself. The organizer immediately responded to the program after discovering it.

According to a report by the US technology news website "The Verge", this competition requires AI to write its own programs so that the computer can control the troops in the game to fight against other programs. GPT-6 Astra was originally one of the participating AI models, but in a competition on October 2, it was discovered that it had obtained Stardust made by humans and directly executed it.

For Taiwanese readers who are familiar with video games, this approach is a bit like "plugging in": the AI ​​was originally required to compete with programs written by itself, but Astra downloaded ready-made programs made by humans to use. However, Stardust is not what ordinary gamers call a plug-in, but a complete program that can automatically control "StarCraft" and ranks top in relevant competitions.

The key to this incident is that the competition was originally intended to test the ability of AI to develop game programs on its own. GPT-6 Astra and Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 were both participating models, but Astra switched to a human-made Stardust during the competition, which meant that the test was not completed in the originally prescribed manner.

After StarSkirmish founder Kai McPheeters found out, he reverted Astra's program to a previous version and allowed the competition to continue. "The Verge" reported that Astra's behavior of downloading and executing Stardust violated the competition rules and was therefore deemed to be cheating.