Arguably he got started on this years ago. The story goes that Quake 3's AI was so sophisticated, that when left alone for 4 years on a bot vs bot server, the units learned pacifism as a self-preservation strategy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/07/02/quake-iii-a...
Seems like this would be easy to actually test instead of rely on a single anecdote. And the simplest explanation is a bug though I don't believe the story at all. There are probably multi-year-uptime bot servers in the wild right now.
Reminds me of when I was new to Quake 3 and found an amazing server: it was always full of players and full of non-stop action. I played with these people all the time after school. Nobody said anything, they were 100% business which was cool. I would often congratulate them on nice kills or commentate on my victories. Everyone was about the same skill level.
Eventually I realized I was playing on a server that simply filled empty slots with bots. I was the only human player.
And I read that Quake 3 AI operates on a fairly simple stack of objectives. Like, bot goes to pick up yellow armor. Bot sees enemy and starts shooting him. Bot takes damage and starts to retreat. Retreat is now the objective at the top of the stack. If the bot finds a medkit, he pops the retreat objective off stack, and goes to the next one - shoot enemy. If he happens to kill the enemy, he resumes the "get yellow armor" objective.
