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Show Notes
Essential to our assessment of risk and ability to plan for the future is our understanding of the probability of certain events occurring. If we can estimate the likelihood of risks, then we can evaluate their relative importance and apply our risk mitigation resources effectively. Predicting the future is, obviously, far from easy — and yet a community of "superforecasters" are attempting to do just that. Not only are they trying, but these superforecasters are also reliably outperforming subject matter experts at making predictions in their own fields. Robert de Neufville joins us on this episode of the FLI Podcast to explain what superforecasting is, how it's done, and the ways it can help us with crucial decision making.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- What superforecasting is and what the community looks like
- How superforecasting is done and its potential use in decision making
- The challenges of making predictions
- Predictions about and lessons from COVID-19
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
5:00 What is superforecasting?
7:22 Who are superforecasters and where did they come from?
10:43 How is superforecasting done and what are the relevant skills?
15:12 Developing a better understanding of probabilities
18:42 How is it that superforecasters are better at making predictions than subject matter experts?
21:43 COVID-19 and a failure to understand exponentials
24:27 What organizations and platforms exist in the space of superforecasting?
27:31 Whats up for consideration in an actual forecast
28:55 How are forecasts aggregated? Are they used?
31:37 How accurate are superforecasters?
34:34 How is superforecasting complementary to global catastrophic risk research and efforts?
39:15 The kinds of superforecasting platforms that exist
43:00 How accurate can we get around global catastrophic and existential risks?
46:20 How to deal with extremely rare risk and how to evaluate your prediction after the fact
53:33 Superforecasting, expected value calculations, and their use in decision making
56:46 Failure to prepare for COVID-19 and if superforecasting will be increasingly applied to critical decision making
01:01:55 What can we do to improve the use of superforecasting?
01:02:54 Forecasts about COVID-19
01:11:43 How do you convince others of your ability as a superforecaster?
01:13:55 Expanding the kinds of questions we do forecasting on
01:15:49 How to utilize subject experts and superforecasters
01:17:54 Where to find and follow Robert
Citations:
The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
Robert's Twitter and his blog Anthropocene
If you want to try making predictions, you can try Good Judgement Open or Metaculus
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