My quick take: Forecasting is such an intellectual exercise, I’d be really surprised if it becomes a popular feature on social media platforms, or will have effects on the epistemic competencies of the general population.
I think I‘d approach it more like making math or programming or chess a more widely shared skill: lobby to introduce it at schools, organize prestigious competitions for highschools and universities, convince employers that this is a valuable skill, make it easy to verify the skill (I like your idea of a coursera course + forecasting competition).
Forecasting is such an intellectual exercise, I’d be really surprised if it becomes a popular feature on social media platforms
I’d also be surprised. :) Perhaps I’m not as pessimistic as you though. In a way, forecasting is not that “intellectual”. Many people bet on sport games which (implicitly) involves forecasting. Most people are also interested in weather and election forecasts and know how to interpret them (roughly).
Of course, forecasting wouldn’t become popular because it’s intrinsically enjoyable. People would have to get incentivized to do so (the point of our post). However, people are willing to do pretty complicated things (e.g., search engine optimization) in order to boost their views, so maybe this isn’t that implausible.
As we mention in the essay, one could also make forecasting much easier and more intuitive, by e.g. not using those fancy probability distributions like on Metaculus, but maybe just a simple slider ranging from 0% to 100%.
Forecasting also doesn’t have to be very popular. Even in our best case scenario, we envision that only a few percent of users make regular forecasts. It doesn’t seem highly unrealistic that many of the smartest and most engaged social media users (e.g., journalists) would be open to forecasting, especially if it boosts their views.
But yeah, given that there is no real demand for forecasting features, it would be really difficult to convince social media executives to adopt such features.
I think I‘d approach it more like making math or programming or chess a more widely shared skill
I agree that this approach is more realistic. :) However, it would require many more resources and would take longer.
Hm, regarding sports and election betting, I think you’re right that people find it enjoyable, but then again I’d expect no effect on epistemic skills due to this. Looking at sports betting bars in my town it doesn’t seem to be a place for people that e.g. would ever track their performance. But I also think the online Twitter crowd is different. I’m not sure how much I’d update on Youtubers investing time into gaming Youtube’s algorithms. This seems to be more a case of investing 2h watching stuff to get a recipe to implement?
Just in case you didn’t see it, Metaculus’ binary forecasts are implemented with exactly those 0%-100% sliders.
I agree that this approach is more realistic. :) However, it would require many more resources and would take longer.
Not sure if I think it would require that many more resources. I was surprised that Metaculus’ AI forecasting tournament was featured on Forbes the other day with “only” $50k in prizes. Also, from the point of view of a participant, the EA groups forecasting tournament seemed to go really well and introduced at least 6 people I know of into more serious forecasting (being run by volunteers with prizes in form of $500 donation money). The coursera course sounds like something that’s just one grant away. Looking at Good Judgement Open, ~half of their tournaments seem to be funded by news agencies and research institutes, so reaching out to more (for-profit) orgs that could make use of forecasts and hiring good forecasters doesn’t seem so far off, either.
I also imagined that the effect on epistemic competence will mostly be that most people learn that they should defer more to the consensus of people with better forecasting ability, right? I might expect to see the same effect from having a prominent group of people that perform well in forecasting. E.g. barely anyone who’s not involved in professional math or chess or poker will pretend they could play as well as them. Most people would defer to them on math or poker or chess questions.
Not sure if I think it would require that many more resources. I was surprised that Metaculus’ AI forecasting tournament was featured on Forbes the other day with “only” $50k in prizes. Also, from the point of view of a participant, the EA groups forecasting tournament seemed to go really well and introduced at least 6 people I know of into more serious forecasting (being run by volunteers with prizes in form of $500 donation money).
Yeah, I guess I was thinking about introducing millions of people to forecasting. But yeah, forecasting tournaments are a great idea.
I agree that a forecasting Coursera course is promising and much more realistic.
Thanks, stimulating ideas!
My quick take: Forecasting is such an intellectual exercise, I’d be really surprised if it becomes a popular feature on social media platforms, or will have effects on the epistemic competencies of the general population.
I think I‘d approach it more like making math or programming or chess a more widely shared skill: lobby to introduce it at schools, organize prestigious competitions for highschools and universities, convince employers that this is a valuable skill, make it easy to verify the skill (I like your idea of a coursera course + forecasting competition).
I’d also be surprised. :) Perhaps I’m not as pessimistic as you though. In a way, forecasting is not that “intellectual”. Many people bet on sport games which (implicitly) involves forecasting. Most people are also interested in weather and election forecasts and know how to interpret them (roughly).
Of course, forecasting wouldn’t become popular because it’s intrinsically enjoyable. People would have to get incentivized to do so (the point of our post). However, people are willing to do pretty complicated things (e.g., search engine optimization) in order to boost their views, so maybe this isn’t that implausible.
As we mention in the essay, one could also make forecasting much easier and more intuitive, by e.g. not using those fancy probability distributions like on Metaculus, but maybe just a simple slider ranging from 0% to 100%.
Forecasting also doesn’t have to be very popular. Even in our best case scenario, we envision that only a few percent of users make regular forecasts. It doesn’t seem highly unrealistic that many of the smartest and most engaged social media users (e.g., journalists) would be open to forecasting, especially if it boosts their views.
But yeah, given that there is no real demand for forecasting features, it would be really difficult to convince social media executives to adopt such features.
I agree that this approach is more realistic. :) However, it would require many more resources and would take longer.
Hm, regarding sports and election betting, I think you’re right that people find it enjoyable, but then again I’d expect no effect on epistemic skills due to this. Looking at sports betting bars in my town it doesn’t seem to be a place for people that e.g. would ever track their performance. But I also think the online Twitter crowd is different. I’m not sure how much I’d update on Youtubers investing time into gaming Youtube’s algorithms. This seems to be more a case of investing 2h watching stuff to get a recipe to implement?
Just in case you didn’t see it, Metaculus’ binary forecasts are implemented with exactly those 0%-100% sliders.
Not sure if I think it would require that many more resources. I was surprised that Metaculus’ AI forecasting tournament was featured on Forbes the other day with “only” $50k in prizes. Also, from the point of view of a participant, the EA groups forecasting tournament seemed to go really well and introduced at least 6 people I know of into more serious forecasting (being run by volunteers with prizes in form of $500 donation money). The coursera course sounds like something that’s just one grant away. Looking at Good Judgement Open, ~half of their tournaments seem to be funded by news agencies and research institutes, so reaching out to more (for-profit) orgs that could make use of forecasts and hiring good forecasters doesn’t seem so far off, either.
I also imagined that the effect on epistemic competence will mostly be that most people learn that they should defer more to the consensus of people with better forecasting ability, right? I might expect to see the same effect from having a prominent group of people that perform well in forecasting. E.g. barely anyone who’s not involved in professional math or chess or poker will pretend they could play as well as them. Most people would defer to them on math or poker or chess questions.
Yeah, I guess I was thinking about introducing millions of people to forecasting. But yeah, forecasting tournaments are a great idea.
I agree that a forecasting Coursera course is promising and much more realistic.