(NewsNation) — Millions of people fill out March Madness brackets every year — and every year millions of us see our brackets bust. There has never been a 100% perfect bracket.
In fact, the odds of a perfect 63-game bracket is about one in 9.2 quintillion.
As technology advances, though, the Associated Press writes that people are using artificial intelligence to make their bracket picks. Some use mathematical functions to get the “most objective model for predicting success” in the tournament. Others use AI to perfect their codes, or decide which team resumes to weigh most heavily.
“It turns out that if you make a bracket, you’re almost certainly using mathematics because you many of us look at the statistics of the teams of the players,” Tim Chartier, a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College, said on “NewsNation Live.” “I even say that if you’re picking your favorite color, you’re doing ranking, so there’s a certain amount of mathematics even happening in something like that.”
A few years ago, Chartier said, one of his students was even able to adapt a method so she came in five hundredth place out of over 10 million brackets.
Even when using AI, a win isn’t necessarily guaranteed.
“You’re making your own choices, and sometimes these tournaments are very difficult, and they still are not perfect brackets,” Chartier said.
It can be random, Chartier said, and there are human factors.
“How will teams respond to the pressure? How will a number one respond if they fall behind in an early round, feeling the history that will be talked about year after year for losing at that time?” he explained. “Those are things that are difficult to quantify, even though for instance, I spend all year getting ready for each March.”
