Microsoft's new survey website will combine statistics, past collected data and human response to predict everything from upcoming political elections to the next winner of the Super Bowl.
The Microsoft Prediction Lab is an interactive platform created by David Rothschild, a leading expert of data-drive predictive methodology, and other researchers, according to Microsoft. The website surveys users on a variety of topics and combines those results with other data sources to make predictions on issues, elections, contests and other outcomes.
Rothschild's research has already accurately predicted the winners of all 15 World Cup knockout games, and correctly predicted the outcomes of the 2012 presidential election in 50 of 51 jurisdictions (the District of Columbia included).
The Prediction Lab will allow decision makers to see users opinions on topics in real time, rather than waiting weeks for traditional polling to take place. Rothschild's goal is to collect data quickly and update it often, according to Microsoft.
"We're building an infrastructure that's incredibly scalable, so we can be answering questions along a massive continuum," Rothschild said.
In addition to the user-generated data by surveys, the models will also incorporate collected information such as polling data, historical results, Internet betting data and other consistently collected statistics.
"By really reinventing survey research, we feel that we can open it up to a whole new realm of questions that, previously, people used to say you can only use a model for," Rothschild said. "From whom you survey to the questions you ask to the aggregation method that you utilize to the incentive structure, we see places to innovate. We're trying to be extremely disruptive.
The Prediction Lab is only the first step in Microsoft's nonprobability polling. The company will use its Cortana feature, the Window's personal assistant (similar to Apple's Siri), to conduct interviews by imitating human pollsters, according to The New York Times.
"The field is in a state of flux - everyone in the profession recognizes that there are a lot of challenges to our traditional methods," Scott Keeter, the director of survey research of the Pew Research Center, told the Times. "I think this kind of experimentation is overdue."
