Real is real - when you make it real ,)
I think that DARPA's research (robotics) is lacking the scale (which VR and mass adoption can bring).
The goal is similar but unlike OpenAI's Gym or DeepMind I want to construct a training ground much more close to the reality in VR that would also allow interactions with humans (e.g. to be trained as well).
It's a logical step after image recognition and playing simple games.