March Madness: Will Auburn Beat Clemson? A.I. Predicts
The fourth-seeded Auburn Tigers barely survived the College of Charleston in a close 62-58 opener. Now they turn right around and play another squad from South Carolina for a Sweet Sixteen berth.
That team would be the five seed Clemson Tigers, who won more handily against the New Mexico State Aggies in the first round. A hive mind of fans predicts who wins.
To predict the result of this and other games, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence to forecast the bracket. About 50 college basketball fans 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.
The hive mind likes Auburn to win this one, though it’s not a dead certainty: It’s a low confidence prediction with 81 percent brainpower behind it, which isn’t super high.
Read more from Inverse: The Perfect NCAA Bracket Is A.I.’s Biggest Sports Challenge Yet
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.
The game tips off Sunday at 7:10 p.m. on TBS.
