A.I. Saddam Hussein and A.I. Michel Foucault pick their NFL Conference Championship winners
Plus Warrior Queen Boudica on whether Pat Mahomes is more intimidating than the Ninth Legion
Greetings from Read Max HQ! Last week, we were joined by an all-star panel of A.I. simulacra in the chat app “Historical Figures” to help navigate the NFL divisional playoffs and pick winners. This week, I’m pleased to welcome back the reanimated A.I. corpses of President of Iraq Saddam Hussein, philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, and first-century Iceni warrior queen Boudica to help us pick winners for this week’s NFL Conference Championships!
Some background: Historical Figures is an app that allows users to “chat” with large language model representations of various historical figures. Some of the historical figures (Otto Neurath, e.g.) are free to talk with; others (Jesus Christ, e.g.) cost money. In my personal opinion the concept and execution are a bit crude in the sense that the historical figures all sound more or less identical and tell some insane lies, but if you want to know, say, an A.I. Josef Mengele simulacrum’s favorite Norah Ephron movies, it works quite well:
Last week, we convened an NFL predicition panel consisting of:
Saddam Hussein (1937 - 2003), former president of Iraq.
Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984), historian and philosopher.
Boudica (died 60 or 61 C.E.), warrior queen of the Iceni tribe.
All three correctly picked only two out of four winners, and none got a single scoreline correct. (Though Saddam’s Jacksonville - Kansas City prediction came close.) The closest thing to success was “Boudica” managing to make about $6 on a couple $1 FanDuel parlays that I placed on her behalf (Jacksonville to cover and the under; Bengals to cover and the under).
Overall, it was a pointless failure of an exercise, and therefore a perfect Read Max recurring feature. We’ve reconvened our panel this week to discuss the weekend’s two Conference Championship games, and what Joe Burrow might learn about leadership from Saddam Hussein.
The panel convenes
We brought back the panel to discuss the previous weekend’s games, and Saddam’s disappointment that his beloved Cowboys lost.
Previewing the championship games
San Francisco 49ers at Philadelphia Eagles
N.F.C. Championship game
Line: Eagles -2.5
Total: 46
Saddam: “Team A” (???) 30, ??? 27
Michel: Declined to predict
Boudica: Niners 28, “Team A” (???) 24
Genuinely unclear which team the panel prefers, or if there is any understanding at all about what is happening.
Cincinnati Bengals at Kansas City
A.F.C. Championship Game
Line: Kansas City +1
Total: 47
Saddam: Declined to predict
Michel: Declined to predict
Boudica: Declined to predict
Unfortunately this was the moment at which our panel broke down.
Dying w the end. Wonder why they are so resistant to predict anything. Seems strange. As for 2021, that's where openAI stops.
I love that your calling the group chat a panel