The artificial intelligence firm Unanimous successfully tested Swarm Intelligence, its new software platform, on Saturday’s Kentucky Derby to predict the four finishers and the winning order. Twenty participants used the software to rule out sixteen out of the 20 horses and then relied on the AI tool again to predict the horses that would place first, second, third and fourth in the Derby.
UNU’s predictions were 100 percent correct, as it placed Nyquist, Exaggerator, Gun Runner and Mohaymen in that exact placement. The crowdsourced intelligence, also known as UNU, won $11,000 in the superfecta bet although there was a 1 in 540 chance of winning it.
Unanimous’ chief information officer David Baltaxe said in a statement the entire process of accurate prediction took Swarm Intelligence 20 minutes.
Swarm lets groups combine their individual predictions and thoughts in real-time to “answer questions, make decisions, or just have fun,” according to TechRepublic reporter Hope Reese, who challenged Unanimous A.I. to pick out winners.
“I placed my $1 bet on the race at the Derby on Saturday and made $542.10. The odds of winning the superfecta [the top 4 finishers in order] were 540-1,” Reese wrote.
In contrast, all of the experts at Churchill Downs failed to predict the top four horses in the correct order. In fact, they could not even predict the top four horses.
The software has also correctly placed winners for the Oscars, Super Bowl, NCAA and more.
How does it work?
According to Unanimous A.I., the system is inspired by the insect swarm and based on the thought that “many minds are better than one,” which resumes that a better chance of reaching accurate decisions is possible through the act of pooling individual predictions within a group.
Dr. Louis Rosenberg, a Cal Poly professor and the company’s CEO, explained that swarm intelligence is found in nature and consists of groups of organisms coming together in a system to push their intelligence to levels they could never have as individuals.
Marvin Minsk, the cognitive scientist widely considered as the father of artificial intelligence, firmly believed intelligence only occurred if multiple agents operated in coordination, meaning that no single individual can be considered as intelligent when acting alone. That kind of thinking probably inspired the team behind Swarm Intelligence and led them to build such a powerful AI tool.
Source: CBS News
Utter nonsense. Pretty easy to do when the first 4 finishers in this year’s Derby were 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th choices. Seems the betters were just as good as this AI stuff.