Swarm AI Correctly Predicts Kentucky Derby Superfecta, Turns $20 Into $11,000 (yahoo.com)

New "Swarm Intelligence" platform UNU from Unanimous A.I. made a bet on the Kentucky Derby this weekend and won big. The bet is called the Superfecta and it paid 540 to 1 odds. "Swarm Intelligence" allows groups to amplify their collective IQ beyond the capacity of individuals, something that the human species hasn't been able to do because of evolutionary restraints. Silicon Valley startup Unanimous A.I. set out to answer one question: Can humans swarm, and if so can we amplify our intelligence beyond the ability of individuals? Spoiler: yes we can. According to Yahoo, "Unanimous spent the last two years building a swarm intelligence platform called UNU that enables groups to get together as online swarms -- combing their thoughts, opinions, and intuitions in real-time to answer questions, make predictions, reach decisions, and even play games as a unified collective intelligence." Already, UNU has predicted the Oscars better than experts, and predicted the NCAA college bowl games with 70% accuracy. As for the Kentucky Derby, Hope Reese, reporter for Tech Republic and the Atlantic, challenged Unanimous A.I. to use UNU to predict the winners. The group used UNU to answer questions as a unified Swarm Intelligence, narrowing the field of 20 horses down to four winners. Then it was asked to order the winners into Win, Place, Show, and Fourth. Swarm Intelligence convened again a week later after the Derby announced the post positions of the horses -- one of the four picks was replaced by an alternate.

Comments

Re:Reading between the lines

[110010001000]

What is so amazing? Nyquist had 2-1 odds of winning, 5-1 for the runner up and 1-10 for third. They were predicted by the odds makers to be the top 3 horses! If you picked the horses with the best odds on every race you would "win" more than you would "lose". Common sense. Christ.

Re:Reading between the lines

[dragon-file]

It isn't amazing at all. They made a bet, and as luck would have it, it won. It was definitely a more informed bet than the average bettor would make, but I don't care how good this thing is, it will never make a living betting ponies.

Actually you might be surprised how amazing it is. I remember a statistician in high school telling me a story about those stupid guess how many beans are this jar deals. Apparently, if you gather as many answers as possible and find the average, it will be accurate within 2-5 plus or minus. Obviously the larger your sample the more accurate your results. So while I am not surprised that humans can be more intelligent in large groups, I still find it amazing.