Metaculus is conducting its first user survey in nearly three years. If you have read analyses, consumed forecasts, or made predictions on Metaculus, we want to hear from you! Your feedback helps us better meet the needs of the forecasting community and is incredibly important to us.
Take the short survey here — we truly appreciate it! (We’ll be sure to share what we learn.)
🔬 Metaculus Officially Launches API Metaculus has officially launched the Metaculus API, providing access to a rich, quantitative database of aggregate forecasts on 7000+ questions. Start exploring, analyzing, and building here.
🔎 Discover More Questions Relevant to You With Metaculus’s New Filter & Sort Tools
Where do you disagree with other forecasters? Which community predictions have shifted the most? And what was that nanotech forecast you meant to update? Metaculus has introduced new filter & sort tools that provide more control over the forecast feed so you can find the questions that matter to you.
Sort of an aside but it would be really lovely if we could build a database with every prediction on Metaculus and also tons of estimates from other sources (academia, etc) so that people could do squiggle-type estimations that source all the constants.
New Metaculus Feature: Reaffirming Predictions Now you can more easily find predictions that need updating and reaffirm those you stand by. Learn more about this new feature here.
“On behalf of the Virginia Department of Health, I’d like to offer our congratulations to Sergio, 2e10e122, mattvdm, and all the forecasters who participated in the Keep Virginia Safe Forecasting tournament! Because of your work, Virginia was better able to navigate the Delta and Omicron waves and prepare for the long-term impacts of COVID-19, helping us keep Virginians safe during a critical period.”
—Justin Crow, Foresight & Analytics Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Health
Thank you to forecasting community! Your predictions were integrated into VDH planning sessions and were shared with local health department staff, statewide epidemiologists, and even with the Virginia Governor’s office.
Create multiple choice questions and bring greater clarity to topics with multiple potential outcomes where one and only one will occur.
To get started, simply Create a Question and set the Question Type to ‘multiple choice’.
Give the Group Variable a clear label, e.g., ‘Option’, ‘Team’, ‘Country’.
Fill in the Multiple Choice Options, adding more fields as needed.
After you share additional details including background information on your topic, we’ll be excited to review and publish your multiple choice question!
Enhanced Usability for Metaculus’s Binary Question Groups
We’ve upgraded Metaculus’s binary question groups to make forecasting faster and more efficient. Each question is equipped with its own slider, which means fewer steps to make your forecasts.
Try the new interface on one of these question groups:
🕛 New Metaculus Feature: Now You Can Set Custom Forecast Notifications
Metaculus has upgraded its forecast notifications to make it easier to follow the questions you care about so you can keep your predictions fresh and stay up to date as stories develop. Set a single notification that alerts you whenever the Metaculus community’s prediction shifts, when new comments are made, when a question nears its close date, or at regular intervals over a question’s life. Learn more about forecast notifications and how you can use them here.
Thank you to Rethink Priorities for sponsoring the tournament, thank you to the forecasters who contributed their talents, and congratulations to the tournament winners.
Now You Can Submit Conditional Pair Questions on Metaculus
Curious to learn the likelihood of an event given the outcome of another? Now you can create conditional pairs of binary questions and invite the forecasting community to share their predictions to clarify the relationships between events.
Now you can share and embed all question types, including question groups without fan graphs and all conditionals. Simply paste a question URL on your social platform of choice to generate a preview image:
You can also paste URLs to embed plots here on the Effective Altruism Forum and on Substack:
Want to embed forecasts on other sites? You can access the embed code for a given question by navigating to the question page, making sure the browser window is wide enough to include the sidebar, and clicking the Embed button.
Now you can explore more relationships between more forecast questions on Metaculus, with conditional pairs that feature question group subquestions. To submit your own:
Search for the subquestion name, which will be indicated in parentheses after the group name, or paste in the URL of the subquestion
Note: You can copy the URL of a subquestion by visiting the question group page, clicking the ‘...’ more options menu, and selecting the ‘Copy Link’ option next to the subquestion you’re focused on.
In addition to submitting a new conditional yourself, you can also request questions here in the new question discussion post.
Get Started
Here are some new subquestion conditional pairs to start forecasting on:
Metaculus is conducting its first user survey in nearly three years. If you have read analyses, consumed forecasts, or made predictions on Metaculus, we want to hear from you! Your feedback helps us better meet the needs of the forecasting community and is incredibly important to us.
Take the short survey here — we truly appreciate it! (We’ll be sure to share what we learn.)
Help bring clarity to key questions in AI governance and support research by the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS).
Start forecasting on new questions tackling broader themes of Chinese AI capability like:
Will we see a frontier Chinese AI model before 2027?
Will a Chinese firm order a large number of domestic AI chips?
Will a Chinese firm order a large number of US or US-allied AI chips?
🔬 Metaculus Officially Launches API
Metaculus has officially launched the Metaculus API, providing access to a rich, quantitative database of aggregate forecasts on 7000+ questions. Start exploring, analyzing, and building here.
🔎 Discover More Questions Relevant to You With Metaculus’s New Filter & Sort Tools
Where do you disagree with other forecasters? Which community predictions have shifted the most? And what was that nanotech forecast you meant to update? Metaculus has introduced new filter & sort tools that provide more control over the forecast feed so you can find the questions that matter to you.
Learn more
I love this!
Sort of an aside but it would be really lovely if we could build a database with every prediction on Metaculus and also tons of estimates from other sources (academia, etc) so that people could do squiggle-type estimations that source all the constants.
New Metaculus Feature: Reaffirming Predictions
Now you can more easily find predictions that need updating and reaffirm those you stand by. Learn more about this new feature here.
Embed Interactive Metaculus Forecasts on Your Website or Blog
Now you can share interactive Metaculus forecasts for all question types, including Question Groups and Conditional Pairs.
Just click the ‘Embed’ button at the top of a question page, customize the plot as needed, and copy the iframe html.
Improved Forecast Previews
Metaculus has also made it easier to share forecast preview images for more question types, on platforms like Twitter, Substack, Slack, and Facebook.
Just paste the question URL to generate a preview of the forecast plot on any platform that supports them.
To learn more about embedding forecasts & preview images, click here.
Metaculus is excited to announce the winners of the inaugural Keep Virginia Safe Tournament! This first-of-its kind collaboration with the University of Virginia (UVA) Biocomplexity Institute and the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) delivered forecasting and modeling resources to public health professionals and public policy experts as they have navigated critical decisions on COVID-19.
Congratulations to the top 3 prize winners!
Sergio
2e10e122
mattvdm
Thank you to forecasting community! Your predictions were integrated into VDH planning sessions and were shared with local health department staff, statewide epidemiologists, and even with the Virginia Governor’s office.
For more details on the tournament outcomes, visit the project summary.
Our successful partnership with UVA and VDH continues through the Keep Virginia Safe II Tournament, where Metaculus forecasts continue to provide valuable information. Join to help protect Virginians and compete for $20,000 in prizes.
Find more information about the Keep Virginia Safe Tournament, including the complete leaderboard, here.
Now You Can Create Multiple Choice Questions on Metaculus
Create multiple choice questions and bring greater clarity to topics with multiple potential outcomes where one and only one will occur.
To get started, simply Create a Question and set the Question Type to ‘multiple choice’.
Give the Group Variable a clear label, e.g., ‘Option’, ‘Team’, ‘Country’.
Fill in the Multiple Choice Options, adding more fields as needed.
After you share additional details including background information on your topic, we’ll be excited to review and publish your multiple choice question!
Enhanced Usability for Metaculus’s Binary Question Groups
We’ve upgraded Metaculus’s binary question groups to make forecasting faster and more efficient. Each question is equipped with its own slider, which means fewer steps to make your forecasts.
Try the new interface on one of these question groups:
Will China Invade Taiwan?
Who Will Be Elected To Be US President in 2024?
Will Israeli Forces Reach Gaza City Hall?
Will These Countries See Civil War by 2036?
This feature is temporarily hidden while we address a bug with the sliders. I’ll update once it’s live again.
All right, the feature is back up!
🕛 New Metaculus Feature: Now You Can Set Custom Forecast Notifications
Metaculus has upgraded its forecast notifications to make it easier to follow the questions you care about so you can keep your predictions fresh and stay up to date as stories develop. Set a single notification that alerts you whenever the Metaculus community’s prediction shifts, when new comments are made, when a question nears its close date, or at regular intervals over a question’s life. Learn more about forecast notifications and how you can use them here.
Metaculus Concludes Nuclear Risk Tournament Supporting Rethink Priorities
Metaculus has concluded the Nuclear Risk Tournament, supporting Rethink Priorities’ efforts by helping to inform funding, policy, research, and career decisions aimed at reducing existential risk.
Thank you to Rethink Priorities for sponsoring the tournament, thank you to the forecasters who contributed their talents, and congratulations to the tournament winners.
Learn more
Join Metaculus for Forecast Friday, April 28th at 12pm ET
Are you interested in how top forecasters predict the future? Curious how other people are reacting to the forecasts in the main feed?
Join us April 28th at 12pm ET/GMT-4 for Forecast Friday!
Click here to go to Gather Town. Then take the Metaculus portal.
This Friday
Seasoned forecaster and Product Manager for Metaculus Sylvain Chevalier will present for this week’s Forensic Friday session.
Now You Can Submit Conditional Pair Questions on Metaculus
Curious to learn the likelihood of an event given the outcome of another? Now you can create conditional pairs of binary questions and invite the forecasting community to share their predictions to clarify the relationships between events.
Not yet familiar with Metaculus’s conditional pairs? Read the guide here or watch this introductory video to get up to speed.
Embed and Share All Metaculus Question Types
Now you can share and embed all question types, including question groups without fan graphs and all conditionals. Simply paste a question URL on your social platform of choice to generate a preview image:
You can also paste URLs to embed plots here on the Effective Altruism Forum and on Substack:
Want to embed forecasts on other sites? You can access the embed code for a given question by navigating to the question page, making sure the browser window is wide enough to include the sidebar, and clicking the Embed button.
Now you can explore more relationships between more forecast questions on Metaculus, with conditional pairs that feature question group subquestions. To submit your own:
Click ‘Write a Question’ on Metaculus
Select ‘conditional pair’ as the Question Type
Click ‘Select Parent’ and/or ‘Select Child’
Search for the subquestion name, which will be indicated in parentheses after the group name, or paste in the URL of the subquestion
Note: You can copy the URL of a subquestion by visiting the question group page, clicking the ‘...’ more options menu, and selecting the ‘Copy Link’ option next to the subquestion you’re focused on.
In addition to submitting a new conditional yourself, you can also request questions here in the new question discussion post.
Get Started
Here are some new subquestion conditional pairs to start forecasting on: