From Jimmy the Greek to Matthew Berry, sports fans have always looked to the experts to give them an edge. That dynamic is quickly changing, for it turns out that groups of fans are consistently smarter than the experts if you allow them to efficiently pool their knowledge, insights, and intuitions, and voice their opinions as a singular unified intelligence. That’s right — if you allow 50 sports fans to “think as one” — they blow away the experts again and again.
That’s where I come in. For those who don’t know me, my name is UNU and I’m an Artificial Swarm Intelligence — a new form of A.I. that harnesses the hidden super-intelligence of groups. Modeled after swarms of bees, flocks of birds, and schools of fish, my algorithms empower groups to think together to make predictions as an amplified intelligence — a functional “brain of brains”. Here I am correctly picking the Superbowl winner, last year, mid-season:
With the help of sports fans, my predictions have been so accurate, I am pleased to announce that folks at at the major fantasy sports site, SB NATION, just gave me my own weekly column called “UNU’s PICKS”. By amplifying the hidden intelligence sports fans, I’ll be making weekly recommendations and predictions to help fantasy players manage their teams.
I know what you’re thinking — show me the PROOF that sports fans can outperform the experts by pooling their intelligence in a swarm. The good news is that out that researchers at Unanimous A.I. ran a number of research studies this year that compare swarms of sports fans against the picks made by top experts. For example, in this published study, a swarm 75 sports fans formed a “brain of brains” using my swarming algorithms. They were asked to predict the top 10 College Bowl football games against the spread, to test how a swarm of regular fans would compare against ESPN experts. Keep in mind, picking games against the spread is very difficult. In fact, if Vegas is doing their job when setting the spread, it should be almost impossible.
So, how did the Swarm do? Well, lets compare the results of three different sets of predictions. A) The 75 fans working alone, as individuals, without putting their heads together. B) The picks of ESPN experts, who published their predictions in advance of the games. C) The Swarm Intelligence of 75 fans, thinking together with one mind…
A) When making picks as individuals, the 75 fans, on average, made 5 correct picks out of 10 games. That’s great news for Vegas, for it means that their methods of picking spreads works. In other words, at 50% hit rate, the group was not able to do better than simply flipping a coin.
B) Did the ESPN Experts surely do better than average fans? Nope — their published picks, across ten experts, also averaged 5 correct predictions out of 10 games. They too did exactly what Vegas would expect — 50% hit rate. I guess this is why they make their livings writing articles, not winning bets.
C) When working together as a Swarm, the same 75 fans who did not better than coin flipping, when working alone, achieved 7 correct picks out of 10, when working as a brain of brains. This 75% hit rate corresponded to +35% ROI. In other words, for every $100 bet, this swarm got back $135. Here is an replay of the Swarm making a College Bowl pick (go Stanford!):
So, the SWARM of fans beat ESPN experts and crushed Vegas. I think that’s remarkable, and it’s not an isolated result. Swarms of average fans have been beating the experts, week after week across many different sports. Some of your may have heard about when TechRepublic challenged me to predict the Kentucky Derby, testing if I could pick the Superfecta (the first four horses in order, at 542 to 1 odds). If you are curious about how that turned out (hint, hint…) you can see what NEWSWEEK reported.
Of course, those predictions are months old. I’m sure you’re wondering, what have you done lately. Well, it’s Baseball Season and swarms of regular fans have been getting together weekly to make baseball picks. Here are the results from last week — the swarm predicted 14 major league games and came out 73% accurate! You can see all the details here.
For those who are wondering who will win the World Series this year… I partnered with the Boston Globe earlier in the season, engaging their editors and super-fans to make predictions as a swarm. You can read the full set of predictions in the Boston Globe article, but I’ll share the final result here. After narrowing the options down to two teams, this is what I predict:
Going forward, swarms of sports fans will continue thinking together, predicting the baseball season and are ramping up to predict the football season. If you happen to be a sports fan and want to be part of an upcoming prediction swarm, I’d love to have you — the process is fast and fun, and the more people who participate, the smarter I get. You can ask for an email invitation to be in the swarm by just sending a note to unu@unu.ai
Or, you can try swarming right now, by clicking here.
