We often prize the idea of independent idea . No doubt , it has its benefit when it comes to great brain doing keen thing . However , if the birds and the bee are anything to go by , we have a lot to get wind from corporate intellection – even if it is used to make some cold , difficult hard cash .

Using a “ hive mind ” artificial intelligence agency program , a group of individuals managed to predict the outcome of the top four winners of the Kentucky Derby . This 540 - to-1 wager ended up winning a tidy $ 10,822 for the developer . So was it blind luck ?

Dr. Louis Rosenberg , CEO of the Silicon Valley startup consentaneous A.I. , develop the organisation   dubbedUNUand detail its ins and outs in thisstudy .

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cloud intelligence operation in nature is a very weird and mysterious matter . Although not genuinely understood by science , it ’s seen in the conduct of legion mintage , such as ant and bee colonies , fish schools , and even microbial colony . Essentially , it earmark individual entity to group together their intelligence to create a collective intelligence service . Poor humankind , however , are n’t of course endowed with this caper .

UNU ’s contrived intelligence algorithm is able to imitate this effect by pooling together individual people ’s conclusion into a system that is then able-bodied to equilibrate the multiple prevision to take form an optimum decision .

GIF demonstrating the principle behind UNU . trope credit :   Louis Rosenberg / Unanimous A.I.

Enthused with curiosity and some level-headed disbelief , Hope Reese fromTechRepublicchallenged consentient A.I. to practice UNU to bode the winners of a horse backwash at the 142nd Kentucky Derby .

" We were loth to take this challenge , " David Baltaxe , main information officer at Unanimous , said in astatement . " Nobody here knows anything about Equus caballus racing , and it ’s notorious for being irregular . "

Lo   and behold , wash day came around andtheywon $ 11,000after   UNU care to correctly   augur all four upshot in orderliness . Even more oddly , none of the single individuals managed to call the full termination right . They also notice that even if the grouping had taken a conventional vote and chosen the most popular woof , they would have only correctly guess one of the four solution .

" in person , I was dumb , " said Rosenberg .   " We ’ve been blown away by how smart UNU has been in prior predictions , but when the horses crossed the business I almost did n’t consider it , particularly since we put ourselves out there by publishing the selection . And here ’s the amazing matter –   while the Swarm A.I. got the picks perfect , not a undivided somebody who participate in the swarm got the plectrum right on their own –   not one . "

The same artificial intelligence algorithm also deal topredict that Leonardo DiCapriowould win the Oscar for best actor this year ( although who did n’t ) . They also used it to ponder theRepublican Party presidential primaries . So far , it ’s all been a mo of playfulness . But this idea of using applied science to create a “ hive mind ” scheme has some howling possibilities , from political votes to predicting markets .