AI-Powered 'HorseGPT' Fails to Predict This Year's Kentucky Derby Winner

In 2016, an online 'swarm intelligence' platform generated a correct prediction for the Kentucky Derby — naming all four top finishers, in order. (But the next year their predictions weren't even close, with TechRepublic suggesting 2016's race had an unusual cluster of just a few top racehorses.)

So this year Decrypt.co tried crafting their own system 'that can be called up when the next Kentucky Derby draws near.
There are a variety of ways to enlist artificial intelligence in horse racing. You could process reams of data based on your own methodology, trust a third-party pre-trained model, or even build a bespoke solution from the ground up. We decided to build a GPT we named HorseGPT to crunch the numbers and make the picks for us...

We carefully curated prompts to instill HorseGPT with expertise in data science specific to horse racing: how weather affects times, the role of jockeys and riding styles, the importance of post positions, and so on. We then fed it a mix of research papers and blogs covering the theoretical aspects of wagering, and layered on practical knowledge: how to read racing forms, what the statistics mean, which factors are most predictive, expert betting strategies, and more. Finally, we gave HorseGPT a wealth of historical Kentucky Derby data, arming it with the raw information needed to put its freshly imparted skills to use.
We unleashed HorseGPT on official racing forms for this year's Derby. We asked HorseGPT to carefully analyze each race's form, identify the top contenders, and recommend wager types and strategies based on deep background knowledge derived from race statistics.

So how did it do? HorseGPT picked two horses to win — both of which failed to do so. (Sierra Leone did finish second — in a rare three-way photo finish. But Fierceness finished... 15th.) It also recommended the same two horses if you were trying to pick the top two finishers in the correct order — a losing bet, since, again, Fierceness finished 15th.

But even worse, HorseGPT recommended betting on Just a Touch to finish in either first or second place. When the race was over, that horse finished dead last. (And when asked to pick the top three finishers in correct order, HorseGPT stuck with its choices for the top two — which finished #2 and #15 — and, again, Just a Touch, who came in last.)

When Google Gemini was asked to pick the winner by The Athletic, it first chose Catching Freedom (who finished 4th). But it then gave an entirely different answer when asked to predict the winner 'with an Italian accent.'

'The winner of the Kentucky Derby will be... Just a Touch! Si, that's-a right, the underdog! There will be much-a celebrating in the piazzas, thatta-a I guarantee!'

Again, Just a Touch came in last.

Decrypt noticed the same thing. 'Interestingly enough, our HorseGPT AI agent and the other out-of-the-box chatbots seemed to agree with each other,' the site notes, adding that HorseGPT also seemed to agree 'with many expert analysts cited by the official Kentucky Derby website.'

But there was one glimmer of insight into the 20-horse race. When asked to choose the top four finishers in order, HorseGPT repeated those same losing picks — which finished #2, #15, and #20. But then it added two more underdogs for fourth place finishers, 'based on their potential to outperform expectations under muddy conditions.'
One of those two horses — Domestic Product — finished in 13th place.

But the other of the two horses was Mystik Dan — who came in first.

Mystik Dan appeared in only one of the six 'Top 10 Finishers' lists (created by humans) at the official Kentucky Derby site... in the #10 position.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.