It’s partly shorter timelines, which we’re seeing start to play out, and partly underlying pessimism on US economic policy under Trump, and the increasing odds of a recession.
The Us economy has been stalled, and the only reason this isn’t obvious in the stock market is the AI companies—so my weak general model is that either the AI companies continue to do better, which at least weakly implies job displacement, or they don’t, and there’s a market crash and need for stimulus and inflation. In that situation, or even with a continued status quo maybe AI matters/maybe it doesn’t, then absent a pretty strong recovery elsewhere—which seems unlikely given the ongoing uncertainty under Trump—implies that we could have a pretty major setback in the broader economy.
To be clear, I think that this bet is pretty close to fair according to my views about the likely future of the US economy—I don’t have a large edge in my estimate, and I’m making the bet mostly to have my (fairly and unusually pessimistic) views clearly on the record, for myself and for others.
I would rather see people make bets that they think are very profitable (relative to the size of the bet).
There’s this idea that betting on your beliefs is epistemically virtuous, which sometimes leads people to be so eager to bet that they make bets at odds that are roughly neutral EV for them. But I think the social epistemic advantages of betting mostly depend on both parties trying to make bets where they think they have a significant EV edge, so sacrificing your EV to get some sort of bet made is also sacrificing the epistemic spillover benefits of the bet.
Agree. Given that Vasco is willing to give 2:1 odds for 2029 below, this bet should have been 3:1 or better for David. It would have been a better signal of the midpoint odds to the community.
Yeah I agree there’s a decent chance of a recession unrelated to AI, but I’m not sure I would pick a 1 in 3 chance of an 8 no prevent unemployment creating recession though. The bet to me though doesn’t seem too unbalanced even disregarding AI. I agree with Thomas though that 1 in 4 seems even more midpointy
It’s partly shorter timelines, which we’re seeing start to play out, and partly underlying pessimism on US economic policy under Trump, and the increasing odds of a recession.
The Us economy has been stalled, and the only reason this isn’t obvious in the stock market is the AI companies—so my weak general model is that either the AI companies continue to do better, which at least weakly implies job displacement, or they don’t, and there’s a market crash and need for stimulus and inflation. In that situation, or even with a continued status quo maybe AI matters/maybe it doesn’t, then absent a pretty strong recovery elsewhere—which seems unlikely given the ongoing uncertainty under Trump—implies that we could have a pretty major setback in the broader economy.
To be clear, I think that this bet is pretty close to fair according to my views about the likely future of the US economy—I don’t have a large edge in my estimate, and I’m making the bet mostly to have my (fairly and unusually pessimistic) views clearly on the record, for myself and for others.
I would rather see people make bets that they think are very profitable (relative to the size of the bet).
There’s this idea that betting on your beliefs is epistemically virtuous, which sometimes leads people to be so eager to bet that they make bets at odds that are roughly neutral EV for them. But I think the social epistemic advantages of betting mostly depend on both parties trying to make bets where they think they have a significant EV edge, so sacrificing your EV to get some sort of bet made is also sacrificing the epistemic spillover benefits of the bet.
Agree. Given that Vasco is willing to give 2:1 odds for 2029 below, this bet should have been 3:1 or better for David. It would have been a better signal of the midpoint odds to the community.
I would have been happy to get better odds, obviously!
Yeah I agree there’s a decent chance of a recession unrelated to AI, but I’m not sure I would pick a 1 in 3 chance of an 8 no prevent unemployment creating recession though. The bet to me though doesn’t seem too unbalanced even disregarding AI. I agree with Thomas though that 1 in 4 seems even more midpointy