Microsoft’s Siri rival Cortana has proven to be something of a football expert, correctly predicting the winners of all the knockout games in the World Cup 2014 so far. But can it predict the champion for the final this Sunday?
Cortana has correctly predicted the winner of all eight last-16 matches, all four quarter-finals and both semi-finals, thrashing Paul the Octopus, the apparently psychic sea creature who correctly guessed the winner of eight matches in the 2010 World Cup in Germany, including the final.
Cortana’s predictions are coming from Bing’s Prediction Engine, which makes assessments based on each team’s previous record as well as a number of other factors like weather, type of grass, and home field advantage (for Brazil).
Cortana’s prediction abilities are one reason some have begun seeing the virtual assistant as a legitimate threat to Apple’s Siri.
As for the final, Cortana believes Germany will be lifting the winner’s trophy on Sunday evening.
When asked “who will win the Germany Argentina match”, Cortana responds: “It’s too early to say for sure, but I’d give Germany the edge over Argentina”.
Other responses include: “Germany seems to have a slight edge. But don’t card me if I’m wrong”, and “Probably Germany. But you never known what can happen in the beautiful game…”
Cortana also predicts that Brazil will beat the Netherlands to claim third place.
“For the tournament, our models evaluate the strength of each team through a variety of factors such as previous win/loss/tie record in qualification matches and other international competitions and margin of victory in these contests, adjusted for location since home field advantage is a known bias.
“Further adjustments are made related to other factors which give one team advantages over another, such as home field (for Brazil) or proximity (South American teams), playing surface (hybrid grass), game-time weather conditions, and other such factors. In addition, data obtained from prediction markets allows us to tune the win/lose/tie probabilities due to the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ phenomenon captured by the people wagering on the outcomes.”