Microsoft accurately predicted the top Oscar winners once again. Researcher David Rothschild’s algorithm chose the correct winners for the top six categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. Overall, Microsoft’s algorithm rightly predicted winners for 20 of the 24 categories. That’s 83% correct. Best Picture went to Birdman, Best Actor went to Eddie Redmayne, Best Actress went to Julianne Moore, Best Supporting Actor went to Jonathan Simmons, Best Supporting Actress went to Patricia Arquette, and Best Director went to Alejandro Iñarritu.
Rothschild specializes in predictive analytics and has worked with this model in the past to successfully predict Oscar winners. Last year, Rothschild chose 21 of 24 Oscar winners and the year before he used it to predict 19 of 24 winners.
The technology also powers Cortana and was used to predict the results for other events such as the World Cup and a multitude of football games. Cortana also predicted that the Patriots would prevail over the Seahawks during this year’s Super Bowl. Given the impressive track record and scope of this technology, it is truly amazing to see it in action. The algorithm is being used in Project Adam, Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence system, as well.
Source: Value Talk
Asher M is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 18 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, focused on game reviews, and Xbox news: one of several bylines used by Asher Madan during his time at ICXM.