Microsoft and Bing have been in the prediction game for a long time. The search engine has attempted to predict the final score of everything from World Cup and English soccer to NFL games. Now, the engine has taken its chances with the Oscars, and it correctly predicted a significant amount of Sunday night's winners.
Microsoft has been working with researcher David Rothschild to create an algorithm that can correctly predict a winner based on the voters' shifting expectations and Bing results, according to TechNet. The algorithm was surprisingly accurate, correctly guessing 19 out of 24 winners in 2013 and 21 out of 24 in 2013. This year Microsoft's algorithm was able to predict 20 out of 24, or 84 percent, of the winners. The only four categories that the algorithm wasn't able to predict were Original Screenplay, Original Score, Animated Feature and Film Editing. According to Microsoft, this particular set of predictions was notable because many of the awards were "relatively unpredictable."
But how does Microsoft predict how people will vote? According to Rothschild, it pays attention to the social pressures. "One way to take this into account is to follow the public opinion on the topic and assume that public opinion will translate into pressure on the voters," he said. However, Rothschild recognizes that this isn't a 100 percent reliable data source, since it doesn't account for how the social popularity of certain artists might affect the algorithm. Rothschild also used data from prediction markets, which would have more investment in the results as well as possibly more data about the voters' goals.
If readers want to see how accurate Microsoft's algorithm really is, they can visit predictwise.com to see the data for sports events, award shows and more.
