From Paul to Prompts, predicting FIFA World Cup results has come a long way in the last 18 years. In this age of AI, it all seems a little silly now. From 2008-2010, especially in the World Cup at South Africa, the world banked on a Germany-based octopus called Paul for football predictions.
Hatched at Weymouth, England, Paul picked 11 of the 13 winners of Germany’s Euro 2008 and 2010 World Cup campaigns. It would all have been laughed off as a hoot of a joke, but things did get serious enough for then Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to declare poor Pauli as “the symbol of Western decay and decadence.”
When Paul picked Germany to defeat Argentina and that panned out, an Argentine chef threatened to pan-sear him. The recipe had started with detailed braising of the sea animal turned football pundit. His German minders pledged to allow no such thing, but then Paul was declared traitor when he offended German fans by predicting the home team would lose. They too announced they would eat him.
A Singapore parakeet fetched better efficiency, but Paul had by then retired from dipping into jars with mussels, oysters and two competing national flags, his first choice of snack considered the winner. He died in late 2010, but not on a plate. The smart-armed creature posthumously received attention from iPhone apps, Google doodles and even Chinese movie thrillers.
Sixteen years hence, though, not many are staring at aquariums. They are squinting into smartphones and at whirring supercomputer screens to identify the FIFA World Cup winners. Getting AI to guess the winner on July 19 however, is irresistible.
USAToday used Copilot, though they offered an insightful disclaimer up-front. “Large Language Models aren’t keeping up with sports results and matches.” This led to refining of Prompts. Nevertheless, Copilot had France ejecting Argentina in the round of 16, Morocco making the semis, Canada beating South Korea and France defeating Brazil in the final.
AI engineering developers had resoundingly proven one basic English question fed into a comp is smarter than 8-armed octopuses. Frank Andrade on Artificial Corner deployed Claude to analyse 49,000 matches, with old ones diminishing in importance, and used an Elo score (fewer points for defeating lower ranked) to find his way to Spain at 27% odds, Argentina 21%, with France and England in semis. AI re-ran the testing 50,000 times, to be sure. And a retrospective AI test on 2018 and 2022 WCs led to 52% correct results.
ActionNetwork.com picked France, using 1200 data points across 25 variables, with Norway predicted to throw up a surprise. A spokesperson said “the 2026 World Cup outcome was predicted based on key data, including national team form, World Cup history, market value of squads and coach profiles.” France’s market value? €1.48 billion, as per the website.
Depending on precise Prompts, Opta AI can summon France and Spain as favourites, while slotting Norway into the Top 10, while ChatGPT lines up Spain, France, Argentina, England, Portugal, Brazil. It is not too different from what a casual fan, not enamoured by Messi, might pick.