You can now play StarCraft 2 against DeepMind, if you share your personal data with them

dgz

dgz

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Did you guys have fun watching Deepmind Play StarCraft 2 at Noon back in January? I know I did.

Well, now we can play against the Stalker making machine. I've been playing StarCraft 2 almost every day since it launched 8 or 9 years ago. Just started the game and was prompted with their opt-in dialog. Almost clicked "OPT-IN" but opted for clicking the Privacy Policy link instead.

We will receive and use game replays, which will include game data such as skill level, MMR, the map played, race played, time/date played, and game duration. It may be possible in certain cases to identify players from the replays and this data, and during the live games some of our team members may see the full player details that are normally shown in-game in StarCraft II. The replays we receive and the game data they contain will be the same as those usually saved by players on Battle.net, except that to protect your privacy AlphaStar will play on a StarCraft II build that will remove certain identifying details from the replays that DeepMind is able to save. The details that will be removed include usernames, user IDs and chat histories. Other identifying details will be removed to the extent that they can be without compromising the research DeepMind is pursuing.
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The screen is still waiting for me. Going to click "OPT-OUT" out of spite. They only need game state data. Why are they identifying people?

News item: https://starcraft2.com/en-us/news/22933138
Privacy Policy: https://deepmind.com/alphastar-privacy-policy-english/
 
They're not identifying people. The privacy notice clearly states that the information may make it possible to identify players during live games. You know, like how you can identify human players when you play against them in SC2 multiplayer. For replays they are removing all identification features they can that will not impact research.
 
GoldenTiger said:
They aren't. They are warning you that they are collecting data that might be usable but that isn't their purpose. Reread it.
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You do realize this company is owned by Google, right?
 
Derangel said:
They're not identifying people. The privacy notice clearly states that the information may make it possible to identify players during live games. You know, like how you can identify human players when you play against them in SC2 multiplayer. For replays they are removing all identification features they can that will not impact research.
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It's not that clear, not to me anyway.

Other identifying details will be removed to the extent that they can be without compromising the research DeepMind is pursuing.
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Cool but they do not bother telling you what those are.

DeepMind will use your replays and the related game data as part of our scientific research into, and development of, artificial intelligence.
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What related game data? The replay is the game data. The way it's worded makes it unclear.
 
dgz said:
It's not that clear, not to me anyway.



Cool but they do not bother telling you what those are.



What related game data? The replay is the game data. The way it's worded makes it unclear.
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If you're worried about people being able to identify you, you probably shouldn't play SC2 online. It sounds like they're getting all the data that anyone playing the game would get when playing live and for replays they're striping out what they can while retaining the data required to actually do their jobs.

Privacy notices are always a bit vague. This is one of the more specific ones I've seen in a while.
 
If you believe there is such thing as artificial intelligence, then you may as well believe this too.

Always connected single player, here to stay. Yay.
 
dgz said:
You do realize this company is owned by Google, right?
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I think it's fair to assume the promise to not use your data in certain ways does not extend pass that specific service or to those google shares the data with.

Google strips you name off of data which includes a browser/computer fingerprint.
Company A has your browser/computer fingerprint and your e-mail like an online gaming service or store.
Company B has your name and your e-mail like a bank or utility company
Company C combines reconstitutes the collected data with your identity

It probably happens with fewer companies and we probably have companies that act entirely to de-psuedonomize your data.
 
They are saying they will use your gameplay to teach their AI to get even better.

And to be in compliance with EU regulations, they have to be verbose about anything "data-collect-y".

The "share personal data" in the thread title is misleading... they are saying that your playstyle might give you away. I understood that to mean if I am really good at StarCraft II, and I stream a lot, and some of my behaviors and patterns can be discerned from that public stream, then it's theoretically possible that someone analyzing the collected gameplay might be able to go '"oh, hey, that looks like GoodBoy. He's such a wiz at StarCraft II, and he always starts his games by doing that... I'm a big fan of his twitch stream... cool..."

(lol)
 
Derangel said:
If you're worried about people being able to identify you, you probably shouldn't play SC2 online. It sounds like they're getting all the data that anyone playing the game would get when playing live and for replays they're striping out what they can while retaining the data required to actually do their jobs.

Privacy notices are always a bit vague. This is one of the more specific ones I've seen in a while.
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If he's worried of his idendity, he shouldn't be on the internet at all. :D:D:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
I played SCII for years but not so much recently and very very little in the multiplayer mode.
 
"they are collecting data that might be usable but that isn't their purpose. " ... ;)
 
This is GDPR and CCPA language to CYA. At my company the legal department has interpreted that storing the commination of certain data is PII. I'm fairly sure that's what happening here.

For example just storing your player rank may not be PII, but storing it alongside the regional ladder you play in, and the date the game was played.... Well now that's PII because that combination of data is different.
 
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