I have to look at Tetlock again—there’s a difference between predicting what will be determined to be the cause of Arafat’s death (historical, fact collecting) and predicting how new discoveries in the future will affect future politics. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be surprised that some people are better than others at predicting future events in human affairs. An example would be predicting that Moore’s Law holds next year. In such a case, one could understand the engineering that is necessary to improve computer chips, perhaps understanding that production of a necessary component will half in price next year based on new supplies being uncovered in some mine. This is more knowledge of slight modifications of current understanding (basically, engineering vs. basic science research). It’s certainly important and impressive, but it’s more refining existing knowledge rathe rather than making new discoveries. Though I do recognize this response reads like me moving the goal posts....
Nice point about human development… I’m not sure how it relates. It seems to me this is biology playing out at a predictable pace. I’d bet that the elements of language development that are not dependent on biology vary greatly in their timelines, and the regularity that this research is discovering is almost purely biological. If we had the technology to do so, we could alter this biological development, and suddenly the old rules about milestones would fail. Put another way—reproducible experiments in psychology tell us about physiology of the brain, but nothing about minds, because mental phenomena are not predictable.
The periodic table is a perfect example of what I’m talking about—Mendelev discovered the periodicity, and then was able to predict features of the natural world (that certain chemical properties would conform to this theory.) So, periodicity was the discovery, and fitting in the elements just conformed to the original discovery.
Here’s another way to put my argument—imagine if every person were given a honda civic at age 16. You could imagine that most people would drive honda civics. An alien observer could think “humans are pre-programmed to choose honda civics.” But in fact, we are free to choose any car we want, it’s just that it’s really handy to keep driving the car we were given. Similarly in the real world—there are commonalities and propensities that can be picked up on by superforecasters, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be overwritten if someone has a mind to do so.
Great points though, I’ve got some thinking to do.
Though I do recognize this response reads like me moving the goal posts....
Yep, I think this is my difficulty with your viewpoint. You argue that there’s no way to predict future human discoveries, and if I give you counterexamples your response seems to be ‘that’s not what I mean by discovery’. I’m not convinced the ‘discovery-like’ concept you’re trying to identify and make claims about is coherent.
Maybe a better example here would be the theory of relativity and the subsequent invention of nuclear weapons. I’m not a physicist, but I would guess the scientific breakthrough that led to nuclear weapons would have been almost impossible to predict unless you were Einstein or Einstein-adjacent.
I agree we should be very scared of these sorts of breakthroughs, and the good news is many EAs agree with you! See Nick Bostrom’s Vulnerable World Hypothesis for example. You don’t need to argue against our ability to predict if/when all future discoveries will occur to make this case.
I would guess the scientific breakthrough that led to nuclear weapons would have been almost impossible to predict unless you were Einstein or Einstein-adjacent.
Great point—Leo Szilard foresaw nuclear weapons and collaborated with Einstein to persuade FDR to start the Manhattan Project. Szilard would have done extremely well in a Tetlock scenario. However, this also conforms with my point—Szilard was able to successfully predict because he was privy to the relevant discoveries. The remainder of the task was largely engineering (again, not to belittle those discoveries). I think this also applies to superforecasters—they become like Szilard, learning of the relevant discoveries and then foreseeing the engineering steps.
Regarding sci-fi, Szilard appears to have been influenced by HG Wells The World Set Free in 1913. But HG Wells was not just a writer—he was familiar with the state of atomic physics and therefore many of the relevant discoveries—he even dedicated the book to an atomic scientist. And Wells’s “atomic bombs” were lumps of a radioactive substance that issued energy from a chain reaction, not a huge stretch from what was already known at the time. It’s pretty incredible that Szilard later is credited with foreseeing nuclear chain reactions in 1933 shortly after the discovery of neutrons, and he was likely influenced by Wells. So Wells is a great thinker, and this nicely illustrated how knowledge grows, by excellent guesses refined by criticism/experiment. But I don’t think we are seeing knowledge of discoveries before they are discovered.
Szilard’s prediction in 1939 is a lot different than a similar prediction in 1839. Any statement about weapons in 1839 is like Thomas Malthus’s predictions in a state of utter ignorance and unknowability about the eventual discoveries relevant to his forecast (nitrogen fixation and genetic modification of crops).
And this is also the case with discoveries in the long term from now.
Objections to my post read to me like “but people have forecasted things shortly before they have appeared.” True, but those forecasts already have much of the relevant discoveries already factored in, though largely invisible to non-experts.
Szilard must have seemed like a prophet to someone unfamiliar with the state of nuclear physics. You could understand a Tetlock who find these seeming prophets among us and declares that some amount of prophesy is indeed possible. But to Wells, Szilard was just making a reasonable step from Wells’s idea, which was a reasonable step from earlier discoveries.
As for science fiction writers in general, that’s interesting. Obviously, selection effects will be strong (stories that turn out true will become famous), and good science fiction writers are more familiar with the state of the science than others. And finally, it’s one thing to make a great guess about the future. It’s entirely different to quantify the likelihood of this guess—I doubt even Jules Verne would try to put a number on the likelihood that submarines would eventually be developed.
I have to look at Tetlock again—there’s a difference between predicting what will be determined to be the cause of Arafat’s death (historical, fact collecting) and predicting how new discoveries in the future will affect future politics. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be surprised that some people are better than others at predicting future events in human affairs. An example would be predicting that Moore’s Law holds next year. In such a case, one could understand the engineering that is necessary to improve computer chips, perhaps understanding that production of a necessary component will half in price next year based on new supplies being uncovered in some mine. This is more knowledge of slight modifications of current understanding (basically, engineering vs. basic science research). It’s certainly important and impressive, but it’s more refining existing knowledge rathe rather than making new discoveries. Though I do recognize this response reads like me moving the goal posts....
Nice point about human development… I’m not sure how it relates. It seems to me this is biology playing out at a predictable pace. I’d bet that the elements of language development that are not dependent on biology vary greatly in their timelines, and the regularity that this research is discovering is almost purely biological. If we had the technology to do so, we could alter this biological development, and suddenly the old rules about milestones would fail. Put another way—reproducible experiments in psychology tell us about physiology of the brain, but nothing about minds, because mental phenomena are not predictable.
The periodic table is a perfect example of what I’m talking about—Mendelev discovered the periodicity, and then was able to predict features of the natural world (that certain chemical properties would conform to this theory.) So, periodicity was the discovery, and fitting in the elements just conformed to the original discovery.
Here’s another way to put my argument—imagine if every person were given a honda civic at age 16. You could imagine that most people would drive honda civics. An alien observer could think “humans are pre-programmed to choose honda civics.” But in fact, we are free to choose any car we want, it’s just that it’s really handy to keep driving the car we were given. Similarly in the real world—there are commonalities and propensities that can be picked up on by superforecasters, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be overwritten if someone has a mind to do so.
Great points though, I’ve got some thinking to do.
Yep, I think this is my difficulty with your viewpoint. You argue that there’s no way to predict future human discoveries, and if I give you counterexamples your response seems to be ‘that’s not what I mean by discovery’. I’m not convinced the ‘discovery-like’ concept you’re trying to identify and make claims about is coherent.
Maybe a better example here would be the theory of relativity and the subsequent invention of nuclear weapons. I’m not a physicist, but I would guess the scientific breakthrough that led to nuclear weapons would have been almost impossible to predict unless you were Einstein or Einstein-adjacent.
I agree we should be very scared of these sorts of breakthroughs, and the good news is many EAs agree with you! See Nick Bostrom’s Vulnerable World Hypothesis for example. You don’t need to argue against our ability to predict if/when all future discoveries will occur to make this case.
Great point—Leo Szilard foresaw nuclear weapons and collaborated with Einstein to persuade FDR to start the Manhattan Project. Szilard would have done extremely well in a Tetlock scenario. However, this also conforms with my point—Szilard was able to successfully predict because he was privy to the relevant discoveries. The remainder of the task was largely engineering (again, not to belittle those discoveries). I think this also applies to superforecasters—they become like Szilard, learning of the relevant discoveries and then foreseeing the engineering steps.
Regarding sci-fi, Szilard appears to have been influenced by HG Wells The World Set Free in 1913. But HG Wells was not just a writer—he was familiar with the state of atomic physics and therefore many of the relevant discoveries—he even dedicated the book to an atomic scientist. And Wells’s “atomic bombs” were lumps of a radioactive substance that issued energy from a chain reaction, not a huge stretch from what was already known at the time. It’s pretty incredible that Szilard later is credited with foreseeing nuclear chain reactions in 1933 shortly after the discovery of neutrons, and he was likely influenced by Wells. So Wells is a great thinker, and this nicely illustrated how knowledge grows, by excellent guesses refined by criticism/experiment. But I don’t think we are seeing knowledge of discoveries before they are discovered.
Szilard’s prediction in 1939 is a lot different than a similar prediction in 1839. Any statement about weapons in 1839 is like Thomas Malthus’s predictions in a state of utter ignorance and unknowability about the eventual discoveries relevant to his forecast (nitrogen fixation and genetic modification of crops).
And this is also the case with discoveries in the long term from now.
Objections to my post read to me like “but people have forecasted things shortly before they have appeared.” True, but those forecasts already have much of the relevant discoveries already factored in, though largely invisible to non-experts.
Szilard must have seemed like a prophet to someone unfamiliar with the state of nuclear physics. You could understand a Tetlock who find these seeming prophets among us and declares that some amount of prophesy is indeed possible. But to Wells, Szilard was just making a reasonable step from Wells’s idea, which was a reasonable step from earlier discoveries.
As for science fiction writers in general, that’s interesting. Obviously, selection effects will be strong (stories that turn out true will become famous), and good science fiction writers are more familiar with the state of the science than others. And finally, it’s one thing to make a great guess about the future. It’s entirely different to quantify the likelihood of this guess—I doubt even Jules Verne would try to put a number on the likelihood that submarines would eventually be developed.