For those of you outside the United States, or not generally interested in American football, the New England Patriots have just beaten the Seattle Seahawks during the 2015 Super Bowl. The interesting thing is, Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana correctly predicted the outcome of the game long before it even began.
Cortana, currently available on Windows Phone and coming soon on Windows 10, has been making sporting predictions for quite some time now. Utilizing Bing’s search algorithms, the virtual assistant, much like Apple’s Siri, will also be offering predcitions for other trends, including picking the best movie for this year’s Oscars, best new artist at the Grammys, and more.
Cortana first gained its reputation as a digital Nostradamus when it correctly predicted last year’s soccer World Cup outcomes correctly. Earlier this week, when asked “who will win the Super Bowl this year?” Cortana relied, ““It’s hard to say, but if I were a bettin’ AI, I wouldn’t put my money on the Seattle Seahawks right now.” Cortana later changed her response to a much more diplomatic, “My current sources say the Pats are favored to take the Lombardi Trophy home. But I expect the Hawks are gonna turn it up to 12.” Probably a bid to assuage Seahawks fans, as Microsoft has its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, which is just a 30-minute drive from Seattle.
