ELITE SWIMMERS use SWARM INTELLIGENCE to predict RIO OLYMPICS

With the Rio Olympics upon us, predictions are being posted around the world, forecasting the winners of every event, large and small.  Aiming to make the most accurate predictions possible, researchers at Unanimous A.I. have used UNU, a Swarm Intelligence to pick the winners.  UNU is the same technology that made headlines this year by outperforming the experts when predicting the Kentucky Derby, the Stanley Cup, Wimbledon, and even the Oscars.  It works by tapping the wisdom and insights of online groups, combining their collective intelligence into highly accurate picks.

Olympic Swimming is one of the most exciting and popular sports, but it’s also notoriously difficult to forecast because of the large number of competitors with only fractions of a second between them. Experts and fans around the world will be trying to guess the winners of events that often come down to photo finishes. To make these difficult predictions, researchers at Unanimous AI wanted to try something different. Instead of fielding an ordinary swarm of sports fans they brought together a group of world-class swimmers, people who have swum with against the Rio Olympians, and had them work together in real-time.  The objective was to create an “artificial super-expert” by combining the wisdom and insights of these elite athletes.

So, what did the “super-expect” predict for Olympic Swimming?  Let’s look at one example. The videos below show the swarm of elite athletes working together to predict who will take home the Bronze, Silver, and Gold for the 4 x 100 Freestyle Relay event.  Every magnet you see was controlled by an elite swimmer at the international level.  The resulting puck motion represents the optimal solution based on their collective insights.

Will the Swarm’s Olympic Swimming predictions come true?  Well, Swarm Intelligence has proven itself to be a highly accurate method for making picks and this represents the first time ever that a swarm was comprised entirely of world-class experts in the target sport.

The accolades and resumes of these swimmers are too long to list, but suffice it to say that included in the Swarm are some of Michael Phelps’ training partners, World medalists, National champions, and rising Olympic hopefuls. These guys haven’t just been in the pool with the best swimmers in the world, they are some of the best swimmers in the world.

One of the swimmers in the Swarm was Ben Lovell, a 2012 Olympic contender. Ben described the Swarm this way:

“This group of swimming experts brings together 75+ years of swimming experience and first-hand knowledge of the highest levels of competitive swimming. As very few people ever ascend to these levels, the few that do become close knit community that regularly keep tabs on what everyone else is doing. This means rarely a meet goes by when these experts don’t know who swam what, against who and how they did, often times down to the millisecond. On top of that, these experts are all current top athletes in swimming with decades of experience behind them. This training allows them to intricately analyze each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses on a level that normal enthusiasts would not be able to match.”

In short, when a Swarm like this says that Michael Phelps is prepared to add 3 more gold medals to his historic collection, they are speaking from firsthand experience. Only time will tell, of course, if a Swarm with this much insight truly proves to be the kind of “super-expert”, but if I were ever going to bet agains the Swarm, this would not be that Swarm.

A full rundown of the Swarm’s Olympic Swimming predictions is provided in the table below.  In addition to the predictions for each event, there are links to each of  the animated replays that show how the Swarm came to its decision.

Want to try swarming?  Just fill out the form below and tell us what sport you’d like to help predict.  Swarms will be forming throughout the olympics and we will send invitations to any sports you’d like to participate in.