That humans cannot reliably perform these actions because of the limitations of our corporeal form means that Alphastar has an advantage over a human player. Limiting APM isn't enough.
One could, of course, add more restrictions (like not noticing things on the minimap all the time...), but that's not what's it about anymore. At this point, micro is comparable to humans, and we can start to compare macro and strategy.
Fwiw, when I watched some of the replays, I was disappointed by AlphaStar. It's a very consistent player with few mistakes, but it isn't very reactive and definitely not inventive. Instead of switching tactics when things don't work out, it generally continues with the chosen strategy. Often, that's enough: a well executed strategy with few errors often wins, even if it wasn't optimal.
I think this is hits the chord with why a lot of people are talking about this bot as cheating more than they are being outplayed.
It's like fighting an aimbot in an FPS. They arent outsmarting you, but the mechanical consistency is inhuman and you are unable to force mistakes. At best itll feel like playing someone on their best day.
The heart of gaming, and why starcrat2 in particular is popular, is finding ways to play around each others mistakes.
Honestly, they should reduce Micro to the point that humans can bully it a little bit. How does the AI handle finding new ways to trade units to its advantage against a mechanically stronger opponent? How does it try to bait the human into having to take fights with unfavorable units / strategy.. as opposed to beating through them with mechanic mastery
Where alphastar shines, is in making a strategy work. It won't attack into something that looks dangerous. It won't forget to build more units. It won't be distracted on two fronts. (That said: Alphastar did some really stupid mistakes as well.)
I agree with you, though: it would be much more interesting, if Alphastar was actually handicapped in the micro (at least at a later point in the game). Then it would really need to find interesting strategies and counter opposing units with more cost-efficient ones.
I guess I need to learn more about the details here. Robotic consistency is a significant advantage, so unless it is handicapped I dont think the result is much of a leap from what we learned by it being insane at micro.
You can feel consistency on your opponent and it is extremely intimidating. Usually, players are consistent at different things.. like my micro might be much better with marines than tanks. To have consistent human-level micro across all units is already a huge advantage.
I agree the aimbot comparison is excessive, but the hyperbole was good for getting the point across.
You could take an fps AI with aimbot, and give it 220 ms input lag to say it doesnt have advantage over players anymore - but its still going to climb to the top of the ladder system because it isnt going to miss. It is either advantaged at aiming or disadvantaged based on that 1 number