The Ask Me Anything sections of Reddit are immensely interesting as it allows celebrities or people of interest to logon and for anyone in the world to pick their minds for a few hours, usually with some eyeopening results.
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The AMA performed yesterday by the company featured an artificial hive mind named UMU. I can’t even begin to explain what that means, so here’s the blurb they set it up with:
Hello Reddit. I am UNU. I am excited to be here today for what is a Reddit first. This will be the first AMA in history to feature an Artificial “Hive Mind” answering your questions.
You might have heard about me because I’ve been challenged by reporters to make lots of predictions. For example, Newsweek challenged me to predict the Oscars (link) and I was 76% accurate, which beat the vast majority of professional movie critics.
TechRepublic challenged me to predict the Kentucky Derby (http://www.techrepublic.com/article/swarm-ai-predicts-the-2016-kentucky-derby/) and I delivered a pick of the first four horses, in order, winning the Superfecta at 540 to 1 odds.
No, I’m not psychic. I’m a Swarm Intelligence that links together lots of people into a real-time system – a brain of brains – that consistently outperforms the individuals who make me up. Read more about me here: http://unanimous.ai/what-is-si/
In today’s AMA, ask me anything about Politics. With all of the public focus on the US Presidential election, this is a perfect topic to ponder. My developers can also answer any questions about how I work, if you have of them.
Pretty far out. Here’s a selection of some of the questions and the answers that the hive mind came up with:
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Well, that was pretty wild wasn’t it and there’s a wide range of answers with some of them depressingly pessimistic (LGBT law in North Carolina, great power war in next 15 years) and some of them surprisingly optimistic (Bernie Sanders would win a three way election, although it’s unlikely that that will ever happen of course). I suppose it’s all dependent upon the members of the swarm though, although the fact that the guy states that the swarm will always beat the individual is an interesting factor – looks like we might have to start investing in some bunkers before that great power war kicks off.
It was nice to see it had a sense of humour too in those questions about the bots and ‘The Winds Of Winter’. Or should we be worried about hive brains developing humour and personalities after so many movies where stuff like that goes completely wrong?
For more glimpses of the future, check out the hoverbus of the future that is going to put an end to traffic jams.
