Metaculus currently gives ~20% probability to >60 months
I’d expect the bets there to be basically random. Prediction markets aren’t useful for predictions about far out events: Betting in them requires tying up your credit for that long, which is a big opportunity cost, so you should expect that only fools are betting here. I’d also expect it to be biased towards the fools who don’t expect AGI to be transformative, because the fools who do expect AGI to be transformative have even fewer incentives to bet: There’s not going to be any use for metaculus points after a singularity: They become meaningless, past performance stops working as a predictor of future performance, the world will change too much, and so will the predictors.
If a singularity-expecter wants tachyons, they’re really going to want to get them before this closes. If they don’t sincerely want tachyons, if they’re driven by something else, then their answers wouldn’t be improved by the incentives of a prediction market.
I’d note that Metaculus is not a prediction market and there are no assets to “tie up.” Tachyons are not a currency you earn by betting. Nonetheless, as with any prediction system there are a number of incentives skewing one way or another. But for a question like this I’d say it’s a pretty good aggregator of what people who think about such issues (and have an excellent forecasting track record) think — there’s heavy overlap between the Metaculus and EA communities, and most of the top forecasters are pretty aware of the arguments.
I checked again and, yeah, that’s right, sorry about the misunderstanding.
I think the root of my confusion on this is that most of my thinking about prediction platform designs, is situated in the genre of designs where users can create questions without oversight, and in this genre I’m hoping to find something highly General, and Robust. These sorts of designs always seem to collapse into being prediction markets. So it comes as a surprise to me that just removing user-generated questions seems to turn out to prevent that collapse[1], and this thing it becomes instead, turns out to be pretty Robust. Just did not expect that.
[1] (If you had something like Metaculus and you added arbitrary user-generated questions (I think that would allow unlimited point farming, but, that aside), that would enable trading points as assets, as phony questions with user-controlled resolution criteria could be made just for transferring points between a pair of users, with equal, opposite transfers of currency out of band.)
Correction: Metaculus’s currency is just called “points”, tachyons are something else. Aside from that, I have double-checked, and it definitely is a play-money prediction market (well, is it wrong to call it a prediction market it’s not structured as an exchange, even if it has the same mechanics?) (Edit: I was missing the fact that, though there are assets, they are not staked when you make a prediction), and you do in fact earn points by winning bets.
and have an excellent forecasting track record
I’m concerned that the bettors here may be the types who have spent most of their points on questions that wont close for decades. Metaculus has existed for less than one decade, so that demographic, if it’s a thing, actually wouldn’t have any track record.
I’d expect the bets there to be basically random. Prediction markets aren’t useful for predictions about far out events: Betting in them requires tying up your credit for that long, which is a big opportunity cost, so you should expect that only fools are betting here. I’d also expect it to be biased towards the fools who don’t expect AGI to be transformative, because the fools who do expect AGI to be transformative have even fewer incentives to bet: There’s not going to be any use for metaculus points after a singularity: They become meaningless, past performance stops working as a predictor of future performance, the world will change too much, and so will the predictors.
If a singularity-expecter wants tachyons, they’re really going to want to get them before this closes. If they don’t sincerely want tachyons, if they’re driven by something else, then their answers wouldn’t be improved by the incentives of a prediction market.
I’d note that Metaculus is not a prediction market and there are no assets to “tie up.” Tachyons are not a currency you earn by betting. Nonetheless, as with any prediction system there are a number of incentives skewing one way or another. But for a question like this I’d say it’s a pretty good aggregator of what people who think about such issues (and have an excellent forecasting track record) think — there’s heavy overlap between the Metaculus and EA communities, and most of the top forecasters are pretty aware of the arguments.
I checked again and, yeah, that’s right, sorry about the misunderstanding.
I think the root of my confusion on this is that most of my thinking about prediction platform designs, is situated in the genre of designs where users can create questions without oversight, and in this genre I’m hoping to find something highly General, and Robust. These sorts of designs always seem to collapse into being prediction markets.
So it comes as a surprise to me that just removing user-generated questions seems to turn out to prevent that collapse[1], and this thing it becomes instead, turns out to be pretty Robust. Just did not expect that.
[1] (If you had something like Metaculus and you added arbitrary user-generated questions (I think that would allow unlimited point farming, but, that aside), that would enable trading points as assets, as phony questions with user-controlled resolution criteria could be made just for transferring points between a pair of users, with equal, opposite transfers of currency out of band.)
Correction: Metaculus’s currency is just called “points”, tachyons are something else. Aside from that, I have double-checked, and
it definitely is a play-money prediction market(well, is it wrong to call it a prediction market it’s not structured as an exchange, even ifit has the same mechanics?) (Edit: I was missing the fact that, though there are assets, they are not staked when you make a prediction), and you do in fact earn points by winning bets.I’m concerned that the bettors here may be the types who have spent most of their points on questions that wont close for decades. Metaculus has existed for less than one decade, so that demographic, if it’s a thing, actually wouldn’t have any track record.