/EINPresswire.com/ -- SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 22, 2016) - 2016 has been a year of surprises. From Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the U.S. Presidential election, to the Chicago Cubs ending their 108-year World Series drought, experts have struggled to predict the year's events. Yet UNU, the world's first Swarm A.I. that combines real-time human input with sophisticated intelligence algorithms, was able to compile a remarkable streak of accurate predictions.

Responding to challenges from journalists, Unanimous A.I., the creator of UNU, has published sweeping predictions that have proven exceptionally accurate across a wide range of events from the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and Kentucky Derby, to the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates by 0.25% for the first time this year. Here is a year-end summary of published predictions:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: Unanimous A.I. was challenged at midseason by the Boston Globe to predict the outcome of the full baseball season. The Globe published the picks in early August for the world to see. UNU correctly predicted all eight teams to make the playoffs beyond the wildcard games, correctly predicted which two teams would reach the World Series (Cubs and Indians), and correctly predicted the Cubs would win it all. Was UNU perfect? Almost -- the A.I. predicted the Cubs would win the series in 6 games, but it actually took 7.

ACADEMY AWARDS: The streak of amazing 2016 predictions started back in February when Newsweek challenged UNU to predict the Oscars. This put pressure on Unanimous A.I, because Newsweek ran a headline based on the picks, reporting that Leonardo DiCaprio would finally win his little gold statue. That turned out to be a solid prediction, as were most of its other Oscar picks. All in all, the UNU achieved 76% accuracy in predicting the outcome of the Academy Awards, out-performing the vast majority of professional movie critics, including Rolling Stone, the LA Times, and even FiveThirtyEight (which was 67% accurate).

KENTUCKY DERBY: Unanimous A.I. was then challenged by TechRepublic to predict the Kentucky Derby, not just the winner but the first four horses, in order of finish. In the world of horseracing, this four-horse pick is called the superfecta, and this year it went off at 542 to 1 odds. The reporter published the A.I. picks in advance of the big race, which was good news to many readers who placed bets. As reported by Newsweek, anyone who put $20 on the superfecta predicted by UNU won $11,800. One shrewd reader won over $50K. 

STANLEY CUP: Unanimous was also challenged by CNET to predict the 2016 Stanley Cup. Not only did UNU correctly predict that the Penguins would win it all, but the A.I. correctly predicted the Penguins would play the Sharks, predicted exact number of games the series would go, and correctly projected which players would be named MVPs.

SUPER BOWL: Of all the predictions made this year, the one studied in the greatest detail was a collaboration between researchers at Unanimous A.I. and Oxford University. UNU predicted the outcomes of twenty proposition bets for the 2016 Super Bowl and compared performance to 460 randomly selected football fans. As published in an academic paper last month, the average fan was 47% accurate in placing bets, and thus lost money on their wagers. UNU was 68% accurate and made a 36% return on investment.

TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR: A small "human swarm" out-predicted a massive crowd by correctly forecasting that Donald Trump would be TIME Magazine's Person of the Year 2016, besting a massive online poll coordinated and processed by IBM Watson. The swarm A.I., which had only 75 participants connected by intelligence algorithms, forecasted Trump, hands-down, would be the winner. And it made that prediction in only 10 minutes. The IBM Watson Poll, driven by its own A.I. algorithms, took weeks to conduct, required hundreds of thousands of participants, and picked Indian Minister Modi by a wide margin.

FEDERAL RESERVE RAISES RATES: While the Federal Reserve was widely expected to raise rates, many expected more than a quarter point increase. But a swarm, made up of just 40 randomly selected individuals quickly converged upon its prediction of a 0.25% increase.

"We're as amazed as anyone by UNU's 2016 prediction streak," said Dr. Louis Rosenberg, founder of Unanimous A.I. "If you had told us a year ago that our Swarm A.I. technology would enable us to so accurately predict any of these events, much less all of them, we would have been skeptical. But UNU continues to demonstrate that a small number of people, when connected as a real-time closed-loop swarm intelligence system, provides faster, deeper, more accurate insights than polling thousands of disconnected individuals."

Developed by Silicon Valley startup, Unanimous A.I., and based on years of scientific research on Artificial Swarm Intelligence, UNU combines real-time human input with sophisticated algorithms to produce an emergent intelligence that can express opinions, reach decisions, and make predictions. Often described an artificial "brain of brains," this unique mix of "software and sentiment" has been shown to outperform traditional A.I. systems as well as human experts.

Swarm Intelligence, the science behind UNU, goes back to the birds and the bees. In fact, it goes to all creatures that amplify their group intelligence by forming flocks, schools, colonies, herds, and swarms. Across countless species, nature shows us that social groups -- when working together as a unified dynamic system - can outperform the majority of individual members when solving problems and making decisions, proving the old adage: many minds are better than one.

For those interested in tapping into a swarm, visit: http://unu.ai.

About Unanimous A.I. Unanimous A.I. develops Swarm A.I. technologies that amplify the brainpower of human group. For more information about the company, including details about our UNU platform for consumers, or our Swarm Insight™ portal for enterprise, visit http://unanimous.ai/ or follow on Twitter or LinkedIn.