I talked to the guy who led AlphaStar at Blizzcon. I asked if I could get the weights. He said that balance changes and map changes makes keeping the model updated prohibitive.
I personally hope these types of AI's make it into future games as bots to play against in single-player, and also as an agent to run some of the background stuff while you're focusing on other things.
For example, in Starcraft, when you A-move a large part of your army across the map, an AlphaStar-like AI could decide which units to prioritize it to attack once it reaches a group of enemy units, or what formation to move in (automatically keeping colossus in back, observer ahead, balls of marines split apart into smaller clumps), or when your Terran army encounters a significant force along the way, the tanks in back could auto-siege / auto-unsiege.
That was one of the things I was hoping for, better ai, but also there are many unanswered questions in Starcraft. Like which race is the "best", what is an optimal strategy, and I thought these questions could be explored more.
I thought that they had an open API, and I also thought we as players and AI enthusiasts would benefit somehow from this venture, it was all rather exciting. But the research was all behind closed doors, and nothing much came of it except for some impressive demonstrations.
