ACX
Try The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest
The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest is now open, featuring 36 questions and a particular focus on comparing forecasting bots with human predictors.
3 min read 351 words
A thread through the archive
prediction
Essays tagged “prediction”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Essays on prediction
16 essaysACX
MR Tries The Safe Uncertainty Fallacy
Scott Alexander critiques Tyler Cowen's use of the 'Safe Uncertainty Fallacy' in discussing AI risk, arguing that uncertainty doesn't justify complacency.
14 min read 2,052 words
ACX
Crowds Are Wise (And One's A Crowd)
Scott Alexander investigates the 'wisdom of crowds' hypothesis using survey data, exploring its effectiveness and potential applications.
14 min read 2,145 words
ACX
Janus' Simulators
Scott Alexander explores the concept of AI as 'simulators' and its implications for AI alignment and human cognition.
19 min read 2,821 words
ACX
2023 Prediction Contest
Scott Alexander announces a formalized 2023 Prediction Contest with 50 questions, multiple modes of play, and cash prizes.
4 min read 535 words
SSC
A Failure, But Not Of Prediction
Scott Alexander argues that the media's failure in coronavirus coverage was not about prediction, but about poor probabilistic reasoning and decision-making under uncertainty.
28 min read 4,215 words
SSC
2019 Predictions: Calibration Results
Scott Alexander reviews and analyzes his 2019 predictions, finding he was generally well-calibrated but slightly underconfident across all confidence levels.
12 min read 1,769 words
SSC
2017 Predictions: Calibration Results
Scott Alexander evaluates his 2017 predictions, analyzing his accuracy and calibration across different confidence levels.
14 min read 2,077 words
SSC
2016 Predictions: Calibration Results
Scott Alexander evaluates his 2016 predictions, finding good overall calibration with slight underconfidence at 70% probability, consistent with previous years.
11 min read 1,634 words
SSC
Tuesday Shouldn’t Change The Narrative
Scott Alexander argues that the 2016 US election outcome shouldn't drastically change our understanding of politics, given how close the race is.
8 min read 1,158 words
SSC
Links 6/16: Linkandescence
A links post collecting interesting stories from around the web, including scientific studies, historical oddities, media criticism, and current events, with Scott's commentary and analysis.
18 min read 2,667 words
SSC
2015 Predictions: Calibration Results
Scott Alexander evaluates the accuracy of his 2015 predictions, finding overall good calibration and considering it a successful year.
7 min read 991 words
SSC
(Late) Predictions for 2015
Scott Alexander makes belated predictions for 2015, covering world events and personal life with varying confidence levels.
4 min read 615 words
SSC
The Trend Evaluation Of All Values
The author analyzes results of a prediction contest about American political opinions, revealing participants' inaccuracies and biases in estimating current views and changes over time.
4 min read 552 words
SSC
Prediction is very difficult, especially of the past
Scott Alexander creates a test using Pew Research data to gauge predictions about American values changes from 1987 to 2009, hypothesizing that people will underestimate their own political position's strength.
3 min read 333 words
LW
2012 Survey Results
Scott presents comprehensive results from the 2012 Less Wrong Survey of 1195 respondents, covering demographics, beliefs, IQ measures, and a concerning calibration test showing poor performance at avoiding overconfidence bias.
35 min read 5,419 words