(FORTUNE Magazine) – Your correspondent was approached the other day by a Time Inc. senior statesman who, it emerged, was not interested in chitchat but was instead hustling a certain election bet. His proposition, instantly accepted, was this: We will each predict the Republican and Democratic vice presidential nominees. A day or two after the last major primaries (June 7), we will exchange sealed envelopes containing our picks. The envelopes will be opened after the Republican convention, at which time green money will be exchanged at a rate of $25 for each unduplicated correct prediction. Although widely identified as one of this country's premier political oddsmakers, the senior statesman must be rated an underdog in this particular contest. How so? Because he is up against advanced technology. We are applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the problem at hand, whereas the other fellow has nothing going for him but the usual cauliflower in the cranium. To be slightly less mysterious about all this, we are calling on Q&A to help us win the green. Q&A, a product of the Symantec Corp., is a database program that performs various other familiar wonders. However, it also has a unique feature -- at least it is unique in the world of $350 software packages -- called the Intelligent Assistant (IA). The IA enables you to penetrate the secrets of complex databases just by typing in questions about them. The questions are in ordinary English. So are the answers. Making it all possible is a routine in the program in which you teach the IA a vocabulary pertinent to the database. Nothing is certain in election betting, but we posit that VP prospects are most likely to come from the U.S. Senate. Not counting sitting Vice Presidents, 11 major-party persons have run for the office since 1960, and six of them were plucked out of the Senate (or five if you don't count McGovern's dithering over Tom Eagleton). Accordingly, our first move was to create a database with the following information about each of the 100 Senators: surname, party, region, age, religion, liberalism rating on a scale of 0 to 100 (as gauged by the liblab Americans for Democratic Action) and a similarly scaled rating on the National Security Index (compiled by the pro-defense American Security Council). With the database in place, we first warmed up the IA with a few irrelevant zingers. ''What is the average age of all Catholic Senators?'' was our opening gambit. Instant answer: 49.89. Next was ''Name the Republican Senators with the four highest ADA ratings.'' Answer, supplied with ratings: Weicker (80), Specter (75), Hatfield (75), Packwood (60). When time permits, we must give the IA a vocabulary that will let it editorialize about such data. Getting down to business, we assume that the main criteria for a Dukakis VP candidate are as follows. He should not come from the Northeast or Middle Atlantic regions; the Southeast or Southwest would be best. He has to be a liberal, of course, but he should have some defense credentials. With Mike a Greek Orthodox, it wouldn't hurt for him to be a mainline Protestant. Age is not especially an issue after Reagan, but our prospect should not be one of the Senate's numerous creaking codgers. As we write these words, Dukakis himself is going around saying he hasn't yet begun to think about Veepery but definitely feels Jesse Jackson cannot be ruled out. Your correspondent hasn't yet begun to focus on what to do this evening but similarly declines to rule out hanging by his thumbs. First serious question for the Intelligent Assistant: ''Name all Democrats from the Southeast or Southwest who are under 70 and have an ADA rating of at least 60 and an NSI rating of at least 50.'' Interesting answer: ''No forms were found that meet your retrieve request.'' (Nobody claims the IA is a literary stylist.) The answer reminds us that it is hard to find a liberal who is not lousy on defense. We had thought the question might point to Sam Nunn of Georgia, but he is less liberal than often assumed. The IA reminds us that his ADA rating is 30, which we judge too low for Dukakis. Having struck out in the South, we next broadened the search, to wit: ''Name all Democrats who do not come from the Northeast or Middle Atlantic states and have both an ADA rating over 60 and an NSI rating over 50.'' This one generated an interesting answer: Dixon, Glenn, and Byrd. Pondering this trio, we threw out Majority Leader Byrd for being a bit shopworn and Dixon for being excessively invisible. (''Among the least known of all Senators is Illinois's Alan Dixon,'' says the 1988 Almanac of American Politics.) Glenn, however, fits the criteria pretty well. He is a Protestant, at 66 he is not too old, he is liberal enough (ADA rating: 65) but also pretty good on defense (NSI rating: 60), and as an authentic Space/Air Force hero, he should play well in the South. Okay, we go with John Glenn. The criteria George Bush will apply are also fairly obvious. He will seek a running mate who, for openers, must not look as if he hangs out at country clubs. Beyond that, he must (a) not be from the Northeast or Southwest, both of which seem to be Bush's own home and (b) have the defense and foreign policy credentials needed to reassure the party's conservatives, and yet (c) be able to compete with guys like Glenn in the middle of the road. Several IA passes at the problem persuaded us that none of the Republicans with a chance have even middling ADA ratings. So the next question did not set the liberalism standard too high. Question: ''Name all Republican Senators from the Southeast or Middle West or West with ADA ratings of at least ten and NSI ratings of at least 90.'' The IA spat back six Republican names: Stevens and Murkowski of Alaska, Simpson of Wyoming, Boschwitz of Minnesota, Kasten of Wisconsin, and Lugar of Indiana. However, we quickly eliminated four of them: the two from Alaska because the state is too remote, Boschwitz because he was born abroad and is constitutionally ineligible, Kasten because his record includes a drunk- driving conviction. Alan Simpson and Richard Lugar both look plausible, however. Both are proven middle-class vote-getters, both are solid on defense, neither looks like a quiche eater, and both have real accomplishments to point to. Our guess, however, is that Lugar would look better to Bush, if only because Indiana is more representative of America in the Eighties than is Wyoming. We will confess to some unease at letting our money ride on a prospect like Lugar, who is not being mentioned much in standard media punditry. But then none of those other pundits are using artificial intelligence. They'll be sorry, or maybe not.