Science

Who Will Win Texans vs. Patriots? AI Predicts

A hive mind of 31 NFL experts has decided with confidence.

Flickr / dackelprincess

The New England Patriots will look to bounce back from last season’s Super Bowl defeat, but it won’t be an easy task this year Tom Brady will not have wideout Julian Edelman for four games, due to suspension over performance-enhancing drugs, but he still has All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski at his disposal.

To predict the result of this Week 1 match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence to forecast the week’s slate. About 50 NFL 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 outcome, it triggers a psychological response. They readjust their decision-making, building toward a consensus.

A swarm of 31 NFL experts has 78 percent confidence that New England will win at home vs the Houston Texans.

The swarm of 31 NFL fans has high confidence that the Patriots are in for a tough test, because the Houston Texans are fully healthy once again, but it should also be noted the hive-mind thinks the Patriots will still start the season 1-0.

The Texans play the Patriots at 1 p.m. Eastern on Sunday and the game is on CBS.

Unanimous A.I. has made some scarily accurate predictions in the past using swarm intelligence, as our previous 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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