A Super Smash Bros Ultimate player turned to ChatGPT to get an advantage in the middle of his set, sparking a debate about mid-match coaching and AI’s legality in tournaments.
On June 24, Robin main ‘Lucida’ revealed that her opponent at her local tournament, a Corrin player, pulled out ChatGPT while trailing in the set.
The Corrin player, Zorrin, asked the chatbot for advice about banning stages, directing them to ban Smashville, Town & City and Kalos Pokemon League.
The result? A comeback win for Zorrin and a new discussion for tournament organizers regarding the legality of AI in the middle of Smash Bros matches.
Smash Bros player uses ChatGPT to help beat opponent
After the match, Lucida posted on X about the result.
“Lost to a sixteen-year-old at my local tonight who asked ChatGPT for match up advice after Game 2, I can’t keep up with these zoomers,” she said.
Zorrin followed up by sharing their conversation with ChatGPT and the AIs comedic pop-off following the win.
While Zorrin appeared to already understand the matchup and what stages made sense to ban, the use of AI mid-match had Lucida and others wondering about if it should be allowed to begin with.
Receiving coaching from someone else isn’t allowed in the middle of a match, but ChatGPT isn’t a human. As such, it’s a tricky subject.
“Zorrin played well,” Lucida admitted. “It’s funny af for a set at a free college weekly but it’s arguably midset coaching & legality should be discussed going forward!”
“Would this not just fall under midset coaching?” another player chimed in.
“I kind of agree that it’s midset coaching, but almost impossible to police,” someone else replied.
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We reached out to tournament organizer Alex Jebailey, the founder and director of the CEO tournament series, for his thoughts on the matter.
“This is gonna be a touchy subject. It’ll be hard to manage cause players take notes on others, but sticking to a one minute rule between [games in a set] to avoid stalling is probably the safe way to avoid someone taking their time to look up answers,” he explained.
“AI is here to stay, there’s no avoiding it and is a great tool for text based stuff. I’ve asked it strategies before on beating characters just to see answers and it’s usually generic but helpful.”
Jebailey further said that, at the end of the day, “real skill in the moment will win out.”
We’ll have to see how or if players incorporate AI into their game plans and what rules tournaments make. With pros competing for money and sponsors, every advantage helps, and AI is no different.