Last night, #17 Baylor limped onto the field with #10 University of North Carolina. Baylor’s once-vaunted passing attack had been crippled by injuries to their top two quarterbacks, and suddenly their best option was to convert a wide receiver to quarterback and hope for the best against a talented North Carolina defense.
Vegas was not impressed with this plan. Though the oddsmakers strive for even money, nearly 72% of bets came in on North Carolina to cover the spread, and the “experts” at ESPN declared that North Carolina would easily win a “one-sided affair.” Sports Illustrated and Bleach Report thought the 3 point spread was far too – both predicted that UNC would win by 10 points.
In other words, no one saw Baylor’s 49-38 victory coming. No one, that is, except a Swarm Intelligence of 68 sports fans on Reddit. This random group, used a new artificial intelligence platform (called UNU) to merged their knowledge, wisdom, and insights into a singular unified intellect.
Called “swarming,” process combines artificial intelligence with a fun user interface, allowing the group to answer sports question of all kinds, quickly converging on optimal solutions. Below is a replay of the 68 person swarm as it predicted Baylor would win the bowl game in a matter of seconds:
Of course, this wasn’t the only prediction the swarm made. The group generated predictions about the College Football Playoff and all the major bowl games. So far, the swarm is 1 for 1, blowing away the experts and demonstrating that regular sports fans, when they put their minds together, can have very deep insights.
This is not new – over the last 12 months, UNU swarms have out-predicted the experts when calling the Super Bowl, the World Series and NBA Finals. They even predicted the Blackhawks would win the Stanley Cup before the playoffs began. Last week a swarm even outperformed movie experts in predicting the box office draw for Star Wars: the Force Awakens. Simply put – many minds are better than one!
Want to try swarming? Now you can! The UNU platform is inviting Beta Users to help stress-test the technology. Just CLICK HERE to sign up.
