Marcus Abramovitch 🔸

Karma: 3,817

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 4 May 2026 2:49 UTC
16 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Eva’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
Yea, this is fair. I am much more sympathetic to non-PM forecasting than I am PM/judgemental forecasting. The ideas in this post were really developed in 2023/2024 when I saw EAs spending a ton of time on Manifold/Metaculus, investing at high valuations, generally revering prediction markets for decision making, etc. whereas what I was seeing was completely different.
This post really belabours the first and second bullet point, perhaps because that is where a lot of money has gone to, but there can be a lot of value in the third.
I really believe in following the money. I think if we spend $100M on forecasting and $90M of it went to prediction market-style forecasting, I think it’s fair to basically lump it all together. It’d be one thing if PMs were a small experiment within broad forecasting, but its been the main thing.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 3 May 2026 2:33 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Eva’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
Hi Eva,
I think the Social Science Prediction Platform (alongside a friend of mine who is doing something similar for clinical trials) are among the more interesting uses of forecasting/PMs but I’m skeptical they will be uptaken to the degree/impact you might hope for.
do forecasts inform 1% of their funding or what?
I’m skeptical of things of the form “small percentage chance * big number”. I think humans are really bad at estimating small percentages.
Would be happy to talk privately about any situations you are thinking of.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 1 May 2026 7:21 UTC
8 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
As promised, my reply (a couple days late).
1. I think it’s a bit of a cop out to suggest that the money was spent poorly and therefore it’s not fair to judge forecasting on the merits. Not sure if this is what you are saying though.
2. I’m not sure I agree. Blockchains were funded. Lots of academic research is funded by governments, etc.
3. By this logic, why aren’t we paying people in the top, say 100 on Polymarket on non-sports questions and saying “hey guys, we want to pay you to make some forecasts for us”.
4. I’m not sure how I feel about these. I will say, I am not nearly as big a fan of AI 2027 as others seem to be, and I think it is going to severely discredit AI risks because we have been crying wolf when frankly, most of the scary stuff they say doesn’t happen. I am very happy to make some bets with Daniel or Eli on some of these (and give them extra time).
5. Useless is a stretch and I didn’t intend to claim it originally. Sorry if I implied it. I merely think they are overrated, hence the title.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 1 May 2026 6:22 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: Matt_Lerner’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
I agree that there is a lot of stuff being conflated in “forecasting”. I suppose, I want to single out Prediction Markets and Judgemental Forecasting.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 1 May 2026 6:21 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 1
in reply to: calebp’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
I think far more than $10M/year is going into forecasting. Many grants for forecasting are awarded outside the forecasting fund, such as the Navigating Transformative AI Fund. It depends on what you count, but I think it is closer to $25M/year.
I really question if people are really getting much, if anything, from all these forecasts that they didn’t already have before.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 1 May 2026 6:15 UTC
10 points
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in reply to: Jhrosenberg’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
Hi Josh, thanks for the response.
I hate to do this, especially at the start, but I want to point out for you and others who have jobs related to forecasting that it’s difficult to convince someone of something when their job relies on them not believing it. I think you should assume that you will think forecasting is more useful than it is.
As for your points, I’ll respond to some of them.
1. If you want to DM me, I can sign an NDA, and I may update my opinion depending on what these non-public uses of forecasting are.
2. I don’t think this is all that relevant. I’m not sure what forecasting research has really elicited on AI timelines. I agree that talk about timelines creates a lot of “buzz” around AI but depending on your views, this is good or bad.
3. I agree that the impact of measurement-oriented research is difficult to measure, but importantly, not impossible. OWID for example should count how much their work is being cited and looked up. Conversely, I think it would be good to estimate, for FRI, how much $$ the change of the decision was worth and by what amount/percentage did FRI make that change more likely. I don’t think you really gave a good reason that FRI should be funded over anything else that simply has very diffuse benefits.
4. When do you think it’s reasonable, if ever, for the EA community to “give up” on funding more forecasting work?
5. If I’m being cynical, almost every field can say “AI will transform the field” though I’m not sure how much this is worth debating.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 1 May 2026 4:01 UTC
2 points
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on: Winners of the Manifund Essay Prize
Yes, my fault. I should have published sooner.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 30 Apr 2026 22:02 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Manuel Allgaier’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
I already made my case in my post. The other thing I would add is that there is evenmore spent on forecasting, its just under the AI safety type funds.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 28 Apr 2026 5:51 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: david_reinstein’s Shortform
Actually, the set of things you want to apply electricity to is far smaller than the set of things you dont want to. For example, if your baby is crying, please dont use electricity.
The problem side should do the searching since they have the shape and exact know-how of the problem

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 27 Apr 2026 17:51 UTC
7 points
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in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Manifund’s Falcon Fund
I am very open to funding research on the sentience of nematodes.
Regarding intensities of pain, I’m open to it, but would be surprised.
Welfare comparisons across species are also in scope. I consider Bob Fischer to be one of our best people who has a strong hunch for making his research useful, and as much as is practicable/possible, he should have free rein to do the work he finds most valauble. This talk in 2023 is responsible for a lot of my thinking around smaller animals and very much cemented the idea that helping non-human animals was going to be far more cost-effective.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 27 Apr 2026 17:21 UTC
5 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: SofiaBalderson’s comment on: Manifund’s Falcon Fund
Strong agree. I’m doing a lot of writing over the next month, some of which will tackle ways I think the EA funding system needs fixing. I think speed is crucial to grantmaking both in the strict monetary sense (interest rates) and in building momentum.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 27 Apr 2026 1:58 UTC
8 points
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in reply to: JamesN’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
Appreciate the correction. I simply did totals I saw from Open Phil/CG spreadsheets. Ill correct the post.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 26 Apr 2026 20:15 UTC
8 points
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in reply to: Denkenberger🔸’s comment on: Manifund’s Falcon Fund
Thanks

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 26 Apr 2026 19:57 UTC
7 points
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in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
I’m not a paid sub to Nuno so I can’t see.
I had this post in my drafts for 3 years. I was happy to see the Forecasting Fund close down, I don’t expect we will see less than $5M of forecasting grants done by CG in 2026 or 2027 though.
I don’t have an opinion on if I would rather the forecasting grants be made within or separate from the forecasting fund so long as the grants are still being made. I see pros and cons.
I think Holly’s post you linked is awesome and is in my Mount Rushmore of posts (top 4 all time).

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 26 Apr 2026 2:25 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 1
in reply to: MichaelDickens’s comment on: Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It
The problem is that prediction markets on useful questions, many years out, suffer from problems due to capital lockup/interest rates, among other things.
Also, I just don’t think the wisdom of the crowds emerges as much as you’d want. I think you can just ask 3 smart people what they think, and this will elicit more useful info.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 25 Apr 2026 10:06 UTC
14 points
4 ∶ 3
in reply to: Noah Birnbaum’s comment on: Noah Birnbaum’s Quick takes
I think the other thing is that we’ve tucked away the “community section”. People used to come for the drama and stay for well, partly drama and partly other stuff they saw. I think its fine if they come for the drama and read other stuff.
I think Substack isn’t great for comments and the forum is much better for comments.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 25 Apr 2026 1:27 UTC
11 points
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in reply to: MichaelDickens’s comment on: Manifund’s Falcon Fund
I wouldn’t say I “nudged” him. He was doing it. I invested since I thought it was a good investment (it has been). They had no problem raising money, and my investment replaced (some of) one of the other investors.
I wouldn’t have included this, but Austin really wanted to.
I have donated a lot of money recently, to animal welfare (~$450k in the last 5 months), I would have donated less if I had did not have this investment.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 27 Mar 2026 23:59 UTC
4 points
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on: The joys of cash benchmarking
This was a great piece and I have it saved now as one of my “go-tos” for global health stuff. It makes a lot of great points about why cash benchmarking is great and the instances you might expect it to underperform

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 26 Mar 2026 5:52 UTC
2 points
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on: AGI & Animals: Discussion Thread
Not by default. I think humans by in large, don’t care much about animals enough for this to work

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸 12 Jan 2026 20:28 UTC
2 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Greg_Colbourn ⏸️ ’s comment on: AI Risk timelines: 10% chance (by year X) should be the headline (and deadline), not 50%. And 10% is _this year_!
I obviously can’t prove I am not biased in such a way, but I don’t think that is a fair assumption.