it looks to me like this stemed from an "I want to watch someone/something else play instead of play myself" sort of a thing.
I guess kinda like they did with DEFCON. Opening it up so that folks can make an AI to beat the games AI.
In it self it is an interesting thing to do, if you like making AIs, or as a learning excercise in AIs. The game needs to support it though, and if it is not built for that kinda thing it makes it not so easy as pointed out.