A Better Crystal Ball?
foreignaffairs.com
A Better Crystal Ball?
1–10 of 51 posts
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#2I’ve been doing something similar for investing in stocks and it has worked well. I’m exploring building an NLP-powered version of this (based on crawling news events). If anyone is interested in chatting or collaborating, let me know. :)
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#3This is the most dangerously stupid thing I've ever heard. Tetlock is a known academic charlatan pushing his absolutely useless "superforecasting" nonsense which @nntaleb keeps debunking on Twitter. If Tetlock and friends are so good about forecasting the future, why didn't they predict and warn us about COVID-19 BEFORE @nntaleb and friends (including myself) did?
P.S. I have been downvoted for saying this.
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#4This is the most dangerously stupid thing I've ever heard. Tetlock is a known academic charlatan pushing his absolutely useless "superforecasting" nonsense which @nntaleb keeps debunking on Twitter. If Tetlock and friends are so good about forecasting the future, why didn't they predict and warn us about COVID-19 BEFORE @nntaleb and friends (including myself) did? P.S. I have been downvoted for saying this.
I think you’re partially right. However, it also depends on what you’re comparing to and what the baseline is. There are lots of projects that try to predict the future and using a framework to do so in a systematic way that can improve over time with feedback is really valuable. That part resonates with me.
I do agree that keeping this high level and abstract (scenario planning + probabilistic estimates) isn’t necessarily doing them any favours. Their book on the topic is better, and I do appreciate their argument that it’s not about being a perfect predictor of the future, but simply better than what we have today.
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#5This is the most dangerously stupid thing I've ever heard. Tetlock is a known academic charlatan pushing his absolutely useless "superforecasting" nonsense which @nntaleb keeps debunking on Twitter. If Tetlock and friends are so good about forecasting the future, why didn't they predict and warn us about COVID-19 BEFORE @nntaleb and friends (including myself) did? P.S. I have been downvoted for saying this.
I think you’re partially right. However, it also depends on what you’re comparing to and what the baseline is. There are lots of projects that try to predict the future and using a framework to do so in a systematic way that can improve over time with feedback is really valuable. That part resonates with me. I do agree that keeping this high level and abstract (scenario planning + probabilistic estimates) isn’t neces…
You cannot fundamentally predict the future, fuhgedaboutit, partly for the same reasons we cannot use Turing machines to solve the halting problem for Turing machines.
What you can do, however, is control your exposure to outcomes of unpredictable events. You don't know when a pandemic will hit, but you know it is is matter of time, just like getting hacked. So prepare and design accordingly. Simple. No need for this superforecasting nonsense which doesn't even work.
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you’re partially right. However, it also depends on what you’re comparing to and what the baseline is. There are lots of projects that try to predict the future and using a framework to do so in a systematic way that can improve over time with feedback is really valuable. That part resonates with me. I do agree that keeping this high level and abstract (scenario planning + probabilistic estimates) isn’t neces…
You cannot fundamentally predict the future, fuhgedaboutit, partly for the same reasons we cannot use Turing machines to solve the halting problem for Turing machines. What you can do, however, is control your exposure to outcomes of unpredictable events. You don't know when a pandemic will hit, but you know it is is matter of time, just like getting hacked. So prepare and design accordingly. Simple. No need for this…
They would actually argue the same thing. Certain events are impossible to predict.
Other events are not.
That’s part of the beauty of the problem. You need to be able to pick the right events to predict and ensure the event is well-defined enough to actually test. Your own examples of why this wouldn’t work are exactly what they discuss as the problem... Eventually a lot of forecasts are correct; what governments, companies, and leaders need are forecasts that are time bound, as that’s how they plan.
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
You cannot fundamentally predict the future, fuhgedaboutit, partly for the same reasons we cannot use Turing machines to solve the halting problem for Turing machines. What you can do, however, is control your exposure to outcomes of unpredictable events. You don't know when a pandemic will hit, but you know it is is matter of time, just like getting hacked. So prepare and design accordingly. Simple. No need for this…
They would actually argue the same thing. Certain events are impossible to predict. Other events are not. That’s part of the beauty of the problem. You need to be able to pick the right events to predict and ensure the event is well-defined enough to actually test. Your own examples of why this wouldn’t work are exactly what they discuss as the problem... Eventually a lot of forecasts are correct; what governments, c…
Show me the money: did they warn about COVID-19 way BEFORE it be came a problem, or did they not? If not, why should we take them seriously? It is easy to prognosticate AFTER the fact.
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#8> Well-calibrated forecasters, for instance, can estimate the likelihood that a skirmish with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea will result in at least two American deaths by December 31. But what policymakers really want to know is the extent to which China will threaten U.S. interests in the coming years and decades.
This has never happened (a skirmish, let alone deaths) so how can we think that the forecasters are well-calibrated to predict the likelihood of this event? Because they predicted other, different, stuff?
Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#9> Well-calibrated forecasters, for instance, can estimate the likelihood that a skirmish with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea will result in at least two American deaths by December 31. But what policymakers really want to know is the extent to which China will threaten U.S. interests in the coming years and decades. This has never happened (a skirmish, let alone deaths) so how can we think that the forecaste…
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Re: A Better Crystal Ball?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
They would actually argue the same thing. Certain events are impossible to predict. Other events are not. That’s part of the beauty of the problem. You need to be able to pick the right events to predict and ensure the event is well-defined enough to actually test. Your own examples of why this wouldn’t work are exactly what they discuss as the problem... Eventually a lot of forecasts are correct; what governments, c…
Show me the money: did they warn about COVID-19 way BEFORE it be came a problem, or did they not? If not, why should we take them seriously? It is easy to prognosticate AFTER the fact.
not seeing one crisis doesn't mean they aren't better than chance. Also do you know that they didn't make some accurate prediction of XX% of a pandemic that was born out in this situation? No one is claiming to have a literal crystal ball.