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Show HN: The Probability Times

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Show HN: The Probability Times

#1
Hey HN! The idea for this started when I came across the election forecast of FiveThirthyEight [1]. They show a 1000 different possible election outcomes - each one possible.

In this newspaper homepage, I try to turn these simulations into reality by feeding AI with as much detailed information about a simulation as I can (e.g. voting results per state). See source code here [2].

The whole process is explained in more depth in my blog post: https://nerology.substack.com/p/how-i-made-the-probability-t...

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/

[2] https://gitlab.com/NeroVanbiervliet/the-probability-times/-/...

Show HN: The Probability Times
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Re: Show HN: The Probability Times

#5
> Donald Trump Concedes...

Hm, maybe the prompt is too tightly constrained.

There is historical precedent for Donald Trump refusing to concede a presidential race, as seen in the 2020 election when he did not formally concede to Joe Biden and instead launched numerous legal challenges, citing unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.

But I concede that no such outcome is represented in the FiveThirtyEight dataset.

Re: Show HN: The Probability Times

#8

Interesting concept, but some of the pictures are a bit weird. There’s one with Biden and Harris in a practically romantic embrace.

I was given one of Kamala interviewing Kamala surrounded by a crowd of smiling clone men.

Edit: I got another that's definitely supposed to be people lined up at a polling station, but they're all oriented towards the building so it looks more like a mass indecency crime

Re: Show HN: The Probability Times

#9
post #5

> Donald Trump Concedes... Hm, maybe the prompt is too tightly constrained. There is historical precedent for Donald Trump refusing to concede a presidential race, as seen in the 2020 election when he did not formally concede to Joe Biden and instead launched numerous legal challenges, citing unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. But I concede that no such outcome is represented in the FiveThirtyEight dataset.

I was going to point out this flaw too...

Also, Tuesday is election Day, why would a paper with that date already have the results; it won't. In 2020 the final count result came several days after the election day, although by that point Biden had enough EC votes.

A more interesting "predict the future" site would be one that can see the mood of the angry side of the electorate (e.g. based on social media) and predict terroristic acts big and small.

As an article I read a while ago and happen to agree with, the country is already in the next civil war, a lot of people are just in denial. One can deem it a cold civil war.

Re: Show HN: The Probability Times

#10
post #6

Love the concept - though in the versions where Trump loses, you should probably say 'Trump says system is rigged, or election stolen, etc.' -- we all know he'll never concede when he loses.

A Trump-LLM would be simple and accurate enough.. "it's not my fault, it's that Tony Hinchliffe who messed it up for me!"
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