Forget about that IBM computer that is beating the champions in Jeopardy. The real test to see if a CPU can defeat a human is if an AI program can beat a human player in StarCraft. That's the opinion of a group of programmers at the University of California at Berkeley. As reported in a new Ars Technica story, the group have created the Berkeley Overmind which, after lots of matches, defeated a skilled pro StarCraft player in the fall of 2010. The program later won a StarCraft AI tournament held as part of the 2010 Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference.

The article, written by one of the team members behind the Berkeley Overmind project, goes over in great detail on how the team developed the AI program. As you can guess some of it is on the technically side but it's some fasinating reading. Yes, an AI program can be faster than a human when it comes to building units but as the team discovered it';s harder to get the AI program to actually decide the best way to defeat a StarCraft human foe. There are also videos showing the Berkeley Overmind program in action and you can follow the team's future progress at its web site.