A.I. Saddam Hussein picks the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl

A.I. Susan Atkins says Deshaun Watson will be Super Bowl MVP

Every week of the NFL Playoffs so far, this newsletter has convened a panel of superstar football experts, including President of Iraq Saddam Hussein, famed historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, and Boudica, the first-century warrior queen of the Brittonic Iceni people, to analyze each game and provide readers with predictions.

But Max -- my readers often ask -- Saddam Hussein is dead, and while we know your unparalleled commitment to reader satisfaction, which has led us to subscribe to Read Max (cheap at $5/month or $50/year) in droves, means you spare no expense¹ in creating this newsletter, surely it is beyond even your impressive logistical/leadership capabilities as a newsletter CEO/president to reanimate dead historical figures in order to ask them about the Philadelphia Eagles’ pass rush?

It’s true -- I cannot personally bring Saddam Hussein back to life to discuss, for example, whether Patrick Mahomes is the greatest quarterback that he (Saddam Hussein) has ever seen. But the magic of technology has allowed me to conjure, via an app, “A.I.” simulacra of Saddam Hussein, Michel Foucault, and, this week, for the first time, Manson Family member Susan Atkins, in order to force them, like demons bound inside a summoning circle, to predict the outcome of this Sunday’s Super Bowl LVII contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The app used for this devilry is called “Historical Figures.” It uses a large language model trained on some huge unspecified text corpus to poorly mimic² specific historical figures with whom you can speak in a chat app-like environment. It has been the subject of some derision, because of, well, stuff like this:

soul nate @MNateShyamalan

wow. it’s like history is jumping out of the page

On the other hand, Saddam got pretty close to correctly predicting the score of the Jaguars-Bengals game during the divisional playoffs. So, it’s a work in progress.

Introducing our panel, including a special new guest

And so, yesterday, I opened the app, and welcomed Saddam and Michel back to the panel.

In order to shake things up for the big game, we dropped Warrior Queen Boudica³ and brought in a great new guest, with a fascinating past.

Saddam (readers will remember) is a die-hard Cowboys fan, so he and Susan had a lot to talk about.

But Susan’s career was almost too interesting to Michel, so in my capacity as a monitor I had to step in and get us back on track.

Analyzing the matchup

First up: We discussed how Mahomes and the Chiefs match up against the Eagles’ intimidating defense.

But the discussion began to go slightly off the rails with the next question, about the matchup between Kansas City’s defense and the Eagles’ o-line.

Our discussion is sidetracked by interest in Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals

My attempt to gently correct Saddam’s error and refocus the discussion, was met with surprising pushback from the other panelists, who felt confident that Ertz, the Cardinals and quarterback Kyler Murray were relevant to the Super Bowl. (The Cardinals went 4-13 this season and Murray suffered a season-ending injury in December.)

I decided to move on, but a question to Susan about her pick for Super Bowl MVP was hijacked by her male co-panelists, intent on continuing the discussion of Kyler Murray.

Another attempt at less gentle moderation diverted our attention to Tom Brady.

Michel’s choice for Super Bowl MVP, on the other hand: Lamar Jackson

Back on track: Super Bowl predictions

After our difficulty getting through the MVP discussion without mentioning Kyler Murray, the panel adjourned for the afternoon, returning in the evening to make blessedly clear predictions:

Michel and Saddam made straightforward -- if obvious -- predictions for Super Bowl MVP as well. But Susan had an unorthodox pick:

Michel defended Susan’s shocking pick of Deshaun Watson, who played six games for the Browns this season after an 11-game suspension over allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment, by citing his “impressive numbers.” Eventually, Saddam put a kibosh on the discussion.

Anticipating Rihanna

The panel also talked about the songs they’d like to hear during Rihanna’s highly anticipated halftime show:

Sounds like Drake is Susan’s real MVP! 😂

1. Some expenses are spared.

2. Even “poorly mimic” is a generous way of describing what the AI Does: All of the “historical figures” speak on the app in the same lobotomized, ELIZA-meets-recipe-blog tone, and many of them cannot even recite basic biographical facts about themselves.

3. I had this whole plan to add a fourth panelist to the chat: David Koresh. But it turns out that (1) you can’t add a fourth panelist, so I had to drop Boudica, and (2) David Koresh isn’t even in the app! I briefly considered spending $10 to buy A.I. Hitler to ask him, but that seemed like a waste of money and I wasn’t sure the joke would really land. (Though I liked the idea of a post with the headline “I SPENT $10 TO ASK A.I. HITLER WHO WILL WIN THE SUPER BOWL.”) Jim Jones and Charlie Manson were the obvious alternatives to Koresh, but both of them seemed too obvious, really. (Not that Hitler wouldn’t have been obvious, but he’d have been so obvious it would have come back around to funny, maybe.) Anyway, Manson made me think of Squeaky Fromme, who would’ve been great, but because she’s still alive she isn’t in the app. But guess who was?

This has been a window into the “Read Max editorial process.”