I turned over my March Madness bracket to ChatGPT this year, and I have no complaints.
March Madness is now over. The Florida Gators beat Houston to win the men's NCAA championship game, while UConn defeated South Carolina to take the women's championship. And while I didn't get my own championship in the March Madness pool I was in, I did get second place -- without really knowing anything about college basketball.
That's because I didn't make the picks myself. AI did, and wouldn't you know, it went 28 for 32 in the first round and 14 for 16 in the second round. ChatGPT went undefeated in the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, going 8 for 8 and 4 for 4, respectively. And in the end, it didn't do so well, going 0 for 2 in the Final Four and losing in the Championship game. Which is the only reason I didn't win my pool.
You can check out all of the results below.
I don't know much at all about the teams that played in this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament (or women's), but I still wanted to win my bracket pool. It's a bit embarrassing because I went to UCLA and attended many college basketball games. I also follow the NBA obsessively (go, Lakers!), but I've been totally out of it when it comes to college basketball this year.
Nevertheless, I signed up for a March Madness bracket pool, and naturally, I didn't want to lose. I didn't think I would win first place, but I definitely wasn't expecting to get second place, which I'm really happy about. Also, just to note, all my friend and family in the pool knew I used ChatGPT for my picks, and so I forfeited any prizes.
Here's how it all went down.
How I asked ChatGPT to fill out my March Madness bracket
There are many ways to ask ChatGPT to fill out a March Madness bracket. Here are a few different scenarios that could have worked, plus the eventual option that I chose.
You can play it safe and stick to mostly favorites.
"Fill out my March Madness bracket with a statistically sound and low-risk approach, prioritizing favorites while including a few historically reasonable upsets."
You can also go a little riskier in case you think that there might be more upsets than usual.
"Fill out my March Madness bracket with a mix of strong favorites, a few calculated upsets and at least one dark horse team making a deep run."
You can also go really high risk, which might lead to high reward (but most likely not).
"Fill out my March Madness bracket with a bold, upset-heavy approach -- prioritizing big Cinderella runs, ...
