Scikic: The Artificial Psychic

Michael T. Smith

In this project you will contribute to an artificial psychic called Scikic (scikic.org). The artificial psychic works by querying a user on preferences about life (e.g. movies) and making predictions about what type of person the user is. Scikic consists of a front end (a web interface or a mobile app), and a back end (an information engine). At the moment Scikic isn’t a very good artificial psychic (its information engine is a little rusty, it doesn’t have enough data), but over time Scikic will be able to make good predictions about people using only a little information. Software for the project will be written according to the principles of open data science.

The project is a collaboration with the start up company CitizenMe.

This project could suit students with strong analytical skills: for the inference engine there will be a focus on linear algebra and probabilistic inference in the software. However, we also need students with a good knowledge of web interfaces and a flair for design.