Our previous forecasting workshop in April was a smashing success! Many people* have said it was helpful, insightful, fun etc. Can we repeat our success by having another great forecasting workshop? Only time (and a sufficiently large sample size) can tell!
Next Wednesday, EA SF is collaborating with Stanford Effective Altruism to host another event on forecasting. Together, we will practice forecasting techniques: the skills and ways of thinking that allow us to quantify our uncertainties and be slightly less confused about the future.
Here are some of the tentative topics we’ll try to cover and practice in small groups, time permitting:
Question selection: How do we know what questions are the right ones to ask?
Question operationalization: How do we ask the right questions in the right way?
Intuition pumps & elicitation: How do we understand our intuitions in a way that’s accessible to our conscious thinking?
Information sources & internet research: How do we efficiently gather information in a time-constrained manner?
Distributional forecasting: How do we give probabilities on a range of outcomes, not just a single number for a distribution?
Technical tools: What tools are useful in aiding our forecasting?
As well as some general practice on calibration and making quantified predictions of the future!
Structure: We’ll meet together briefly to go over the details and then split into smaller groups with 3-6 group members each, including a group leader. Each group will be given a discussion sheet that they can copy and group leaders will be given an answer key.
We’ll be using Zoom as our platform as that allows the most seamless split into smaller groups. For people with security concerns, we recommend using the Zoom Web portal over the Mac/Windows App (I am uncertain of the quality of the app on Linuxes).
The assumed background is people with some passing familiarity with forecasting (eg, have attended a prior forecasting workshop by EA San Francisco or others, have done some predictions on metaculus, or have otherwise read Superforecasting), with some members having significantly more experience. However everybody’s welcome! If you have no prior exposure to forecasting, I recommend reading the AI impacts summary of Superforecasting[1] and doing some Open Phil calibration exercises[2]. Depending on who shows up, it might also make sense to have a Q&A in addition to the small group discussions.
As this is a virtual event, all are welcome. However, we only have limited small group leader capacity, so in the (very fortunate!) world where many more people show up than we expect, groups may be asked to nominate their own group leaders instead of having an appointed one with prior experience managing EA discussions.
cross-posted from Facebook, which I will likely be checking much more regularly.
Forecasting 102 (EA SF discussion event)
Our previous forecasting workshop in April was a smashing success! Many people* have said it was helpful, insightful, fun etc. Can we repeat our success by having another great forecasting workshop? Only time (and a sufficiently large sample size) can tell!
Next Wednesday, EA SF is collaborating with Stanford Effective Altruism to host another event on forecasting. Together, we will practice forecasting techniques: the skills and ways of thinking that allow us to quantify our uncertainties and be slightly less confused about the future.
Some Background
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Judgment_Project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superforecasting
http://www.academia.edu/download/37711009/2015_-_superforecasters.pdf
https://aiimpacts.org/evidence-on-good-forecasting-practices-from-the-good-judgment-project-an-accompanying-blog-post/
Here are some of the tentative topics we’ll try to cover and practice in small groups, time permitting:
Question selection: How do we know what questions are the right ones to ask?
Question operationalization: How do we ask the right questions in the right way?
Intuition pumps & elicitation: How do we understand our intuitions in a way that’s accessible to our conscious thinking?
Information sources & internet research: How do we efficiently gather information in a time-constrained manner?
Distributional forecasting: How do we give probabilities on a range of outcomes, not just a single number for a distribution?
Technical tools: What tools are useful in aiding our forecasting?
As well as some general practice on calibration and making quantified predictions of the future!
Structure: We’ll meet together briefly to go over the details and then split into smaller groups with 3-6 group members each, including a group leader. Each group will be given a discussion sheet that they can copy and group leaders will be given an answer key.
We’ll be using Zoom as our platform as that allows the most seamless split into smaller groups. For people with security concerns, we recommend using the Zoom Web portal over the Mac/Windows App (I am uncertain of the quality of the app on Linuxes).
The assumed background is people with some passing familiarity with forecasting (eg, have attended a prior forecasting workshop by EA San Francisco or others, have done some predictions on metaculus, or have otherwise read Superforecasting), with some members having significantly more experience. However everybody’s welcome! If you have no prior exposure to forecasting, I recommend reading the AI impacts summary of Superforecasting[1] and doing some Open Phil calibration exercises[2]. Depending on who shows up, it might also make sense to have a Q&A in addition to the small group discussions.
As this is a virtual event, all are welcome. However, we only have limited small group leader capacity, so in the (very fortunate!) world where many more people show up than we expect, groups may be asked to nominate their own group leaders instead of having an appointed one with prior experience managing EA discussions.
Hope to see you there!
*n>=1, source unverified
[1] https://aiimpacts.org/evidence-on-good-forecasting-practices-from-the-good-judgment-project-an-accompanying-blog-post/
[2] https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/new-web-app-calibration-training