Who Will Win Patriots vs. Jets? A.I Predicts Winner of AFC Battle
Here's how a hive-mind of NFL experts predicted this Week 12 match-up.
Hard to get too excited about this one. The 7-3 Patriots return to the Meadowlands to renew their intra-divisional “rivalry” against the Jets, who have once again crashed to the bottom of the AFC East standings. The Jets haven’t beaten the Patriots since 2015, and there’s little reason for optimism this season, especially if New York has to take the field without the services of Sam Darnold, who suffers from a foot injury.
When your hopes for victory ride on the health of Sam “Hey” Darnold’s foot, you know you’re in trouble. Even if Darnold takes the field, he found himself stuck in traffic due to Winter Storm Avery. How can Darnold figure out the Patriots’ defense if he can’t even figure out New Jersey traffic in the snow?
Meanwhile, the Patriots suffered a setback last week against the Tennessee Titans, cutting short New England’s six-game winning streak. The Patriots fell victim to the Titans’ secondary and nascent MMCNB mantra, which stands for “My Man Catch No Balls” (ranking second only behind YMCMB in terms of our favorite five-letter acronyms).
Other than the slippery Julian Edelman, who topped the century mark in yardage on nine catches, the Titans managed to bottle up New England’s receivers and keep the Patriots out of the end zone. Even so, the Patriots look to be fine, with a two-game lead over the Dolphins in the AFC East and only six games remaining. Of those six, New England has cupcake matchups against the Jets (twice), Miami, and Buffalo, with more competitive tune-ups against the Vikings and Steelers. The real question here is not whether the Patriots will beat the Jets, but whether they will manage to lock up home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Patriots 30, Jets 20 is my prediction, but how do a hive-mind of NFL experts see this one turning out?
To predict the result of this Week 12 match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence. Some 27 NFL enthusiasts worked together as a hive mind to make their prediction. As you can see in the animation below, each participant controlled a golden magnet and used it to drag the puck toward the result they thought was the most likely outcome. This is where it gets interesting: As a user sees the puck move toward a particular decision, it triggers a psychological response. They might readjust their thinking as the group builds toward a consensus. It’s an artificial intelligence, produced by human brains, working together as a swarm.
As the animation above shows, a swarm of 26 NFL experts has chosen New England: High Confidence when asked to predict the outcome of this one. Not looking great for the Jets in Week 12.
The Patriots play at the Jets at 1 p.m. Eastern Sunday on CBS.
Here’s how Unanimous A.I. has predicted previous NFL games this season.
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:
