A few weeks before the Kentucky Derby, TechRepublic reporter Hope Reese issued a challenge to UNU: can you predict the first four horses to cross the line, in order?  Known as the “Superfecta,” it’s notoriously difficult, especially for the Kentucky Derby with its huge field of 20 horses.

The rest is Artificial Intelligence history – UNU nailed it, beating the odds-makers and the experts alike.  And, because Hope Reese published UNU’s picks in advance, bettors across the internet were able to benefit from the perfect prediction.

The team here at UNU turned $20 into $11,000, Hope herself turned $1 into $542, and a novice bettor named Jeff Peltier who last year picked his horses based on the “exotic jockey names” turned to UNU this year. The result? After risking $50, Jeff is now $27,000 richer.

With the Preakness looming, it was natural to wonder if UNU could repeat the remarkable feat. But, this time around, instead of Hope Reese asking UNU if we could form a Swarm to predict the Preakness, we challenged her, “can you?”  After all, UNU is an open platform where anyone can login from around the world, form a swarm intelligence, and ask it questions about anything.

So, Hope assembled a group of friends and colleagues with “some knowledge” of horse racing. You can watch the group make their predictions in this short video. Pro-tip: turn your volume up to hear the Swarm AI do its thing.

You can also read the full story of Hope’s attempt to predict the Preakness in her article: TechRepublic’s ‘swarm AI’ predicts the Preakness. 

Given the unpredictable nature of horse racing, the real question isn’t, “Can any group nail the Superfecta every time?”  That would be ridiculous. While UNU has shown its ability to beat the experts time and again, no one – not even UNU – could reliably beat 500 to 1 odds.

The better question is, can groups use UNU to create their own Super Intelligence that exceeds the abilities of their individual members? And if so, what would such a system do to the gambling industry? The financial sector? Or just to our everyday lives?

In other words, if, left to our own devices, we pick winners based on “exotic jockey names.” But, when thinking together in UNU, we can do much better. And, sometimes, we can achieve the damn-near impossible.

If you’d like to be part of the UNU revolution, just drop by UNU.ai at any time. We’d love to have you join the Swarm.