Who Will Win Washington vs. Kansas City Chiefs? A.I. Predicts
Can Washington knock off another undefeated AFC West squad?
The Kansas City Chiefs continued to make their case as the NFL’s hottest team last week with a 24-10 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. But this week they take on a Washington team that already beat one previously undefeated AFC West team. A hive mind of more than 35 NFL fans aren’t too worried about the Chiefs, picking them to win Monday’s game.
The Kansas City Chiefs have the second-best point differential in the league — hilariously, the Jacksonville Jaguars have the best, on the strength of their London rout of the Baltimore Ravens — and have built nicely on their opening night defeat of the New England Patriots. They play their first Monday Night Football game in three years against Washington, which upset the Oakland Raiders last week.
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From their last meeting in 2013.
To predict the result of this and other games, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence to forecast the week’s slate. More than 40 NFL 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. Here’s Unanimous A.I. founder Lloyd Rosenberg explaining swarm intelligence at a recent TEDx Talk.Subscribe to the Inverse newsletter. Trust us, we’re from the future.
Unanimous A.I. has made some scarily accurate predictions in the past using swarm intelligence, as our previous article explains. Most recently, the swarm went a perfect 7-0 in its most recommended picks for last week’s English Premier League slate.
The swarm has little doubt that Kansas City will win, with 91 percent of its collective brainpower behind the high confidence Chiefs pick. Pretty much nobody in the swarm thinks Washington will win.
This is also one of the most confident picks that a team will beat the spread, with 82 percent of the swarm highly confident that Kansas City will win at home by more than a touchdown. The hive mind is generally more cautious when picking against the spread, but it’s feeling good about this one in particular.
The game kicks off 8:30 p.m. Eastern Monday on ESPN.
If you liked this article, check out this video of Google DeepMind teaching its A.I. how to dream.
