Science

Who Wins New York Giants at Houston Texans? A.I. Predicts

It's going down in Texas in Week 3.

Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire

If you’re a Giants fan, you’re grappling with several things this week: Saquon Barkley looks to be as good as advertised, and could be a cornerstone back for the next five years. Odell Beckham Jr. is a top-5 WR, and locked up for the long term. Eli Manning is a terrible quarterback through two games of the season, and your backup is Alex Tanney? Week 3 needs to get better or you’re already looking in 2019 Draft articles at Bleacher Report.

If you’re a Texan fan, you’re bummed at the 0-2 start but you’re not feeling hopeless. Your season is all about Deshaun Watson and how quickly he can get back into playing shape after tearing his ACL last season. He’s shown flashes but he’s looked far from the brilliant QB that lit the league on fire last season. The NFC south is a winnable, but your team needs to start winning immediately.

To predict the result of this Week 3 match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence to forecast the week’s slate. About 40 NFL enthusiasts worked together as a hive mind to make picks. As you can see in the animation below, each participant controlled a little golden magnet and used it to drag the puck toward the answer they thought was the most likely outcome. As the users saw the puck move toward a particular decision, it triggered a psychological response. They readjusted their decision-making, building toward the consensus you see below.

In a battle of less than impressive QB’s the Swarm went with youth and the Houston Texans. No one would wager big money on either team but Eli has looked pitiful through two games and Watson is equipped with more raw talent.

The Giants play the Texans at 1 p.m. Eastern Sunday on Fox.

Unanimous A.I. has made some scarily accurate predictions in the past using swarm intelligence, as our this article explains. For instance, the swarm picked this year’s Oscar winners with 94 percent accuracy. Here’s Unanimous A.I. founder Louis Rosenberg explaining swarm intelligence at a recent TEDx Talk:

In related news, Unanimous A.I. recently presented a scientific study of its ability to forecast games in the National Hockey League. In a 200-game, 20-week-long study of its Swarm AI in the NHL, it was able to easily outperform Las Vegas expectations, and its “Pick of the Week” was right 85 percent of the time, producing a 170 percent ROI. The paper, titled “Artificial Swarm Intelligence versus Vegas Betting Markets,” was presented at the at the IEEE Developments in eSystems Engineering Conference (DeSE 2018) this month at Downing College in Cambridge, England. In a press release issued with the study, co-author Gregg Wilcox says the technology can be applied to matters outside sports, too. “While it’s fun to predict sports, we are currently applying the same techniques to a wide variety of other domains, including financial forecasting, business forecasting, and medical diagnosis, all with positive results.”

Want to join the hive mind that picks NFL matches every week? Sign up to participate in future predictions

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