After correctly predicting the winner of TIME magazine’s Person of the Year in 2016, Unanimous AI’s artificial Swarm intelligence also known as UNU, has done it again in 2017 by picking #MeToo.
Last year, Swarm AI predicted the historical yet controversial result of who would sit in the powerful Oval Office. And the final result in the real ballot battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was just as the AI had predicted — Donald Trump.
It also went on to predict who would be crowned with the coveted and prestigious title of TIME magazine’s Person of the Year the very same year. And yes, it was the then president elect Donald Trump again.
The online campaign, #MeToo, that raised its voice against sexual harassment and abuse across the world was the AI’s prediction for the title this year. Collectively addressed with the moniker- The Silence Breakers , the individuals who spoke out against sexual harassment and the leading figures in the #MeToo campaign were bestowed with the prestigious title on 6 December 2017. Two days after the AI announced #MeToo as the foremost candidate.
The methodology used to predict the Oscars, the Kentucky derby and the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series was employed by the researchers at Unanimous AI to arrive at this prediction too. In this process the herd of candidates is thinned by eliminating the candidates that are least likely to win round by round until only handful of candidates are left over.
The use of Swarm AI to predict the possible winner seems to be offering a more reliable alternative to the more popular and traditional methods like polls. Incidentally, the favored candidate in TIME magazine’s very own Reader’s Poll ,Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman did not even feature in UNU’s final 5 candidates. The ability of Swarm AI to factor in changing trends and real time human insights provides for a more realistic prediction.
Louis Rosenberg,Founder and CEO, Unanimous AI explained that “Forecasting using Swarm AI technology is all about generating optimised outcome probabilities for the various alternatives by weighing competing sets of information and converging on solutions that maximise the collective confidence inherent in a population.” This would also explain why Vladmir Putin who was ahead of #MeToo in the AI’s list in November was left far behind in December.
