3 ms·
As someone who has spent years trading in forecasting tournaments, I worry this characterization might be misinterpreted as saying know nothingism is correct an
by tedsanders 8y ago
As someone who has spent years trading in forecasting tournaments, I worry this characterization might be misinterpreted as saying know nothingism is correct and we should give up on predicting the future. (Not that you meant it that way, of course.)
It's true that "amateurs" can consistently beat "experts". But not all amateurs - only some. This suggests to me there is true prediction expertise, but our system that attaches labels of "expert" does not select for it.
Prediction is very much a skill and some people are very much better than others. We just don't regularly measure or select for it explicitly.
- ssivark 8y agoWhat about the complaint/criticism that Brier scores (which Tetlock uses to score forecasters) do not weight the severity/importance of the result eg: forecasting the outcome of a war and forecasting the winner of the super bowl are weighted equally.
- tedsanders 8y agoTotally valid criticism. I think nuances like these were what Tetlock had toughest time articulating in Superforecasting and his public interviews. He chose to emphasize the big, clear points rather than subtler, more complicated issues like how questions were chosen and how they should be compared or weighted.