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It's definitely an odd emission since the original research project used such a calculation. Metaculus, which uses a similar technique provides such a confidenc

It's definitely an odd emission since the original research project used such a calculation. Metaculus, which uses a similar technique provides such a confidence interval, along with a nice history graph. As some wild speculation, I suspect that since the GJP only employs a handful of Superforcasters, the initial confidence intervals for these broad questions may be quite large. That's to be expected when predicting a year in advance, but publically admitting to have such a broad confidence interval is probably not very good for marketing.

tedsanders 4y ago
These events are binary. They will happen or not. A percentage prediction already incorporates the uncertainty. In what way would a 45-55% prediction be any different than a 50% prediction? The domain of outcomes is a set of size 2: (0, 1). There are no intermediate outcomes. Both predictions are functionally identical: {0: 50%, 1: 50%}. (Where confidence intervals over percentages makes more sense is estimating a parameter rather than a single event. E.g., if we flip this coin a bunch of times in series, I predict that the percentage of flips landing heads will be between 45% and 55%. Or next year I predict GDP will be between 1%-3%. Or I estimate the effect size of this ad campaign was -$2-$5 earned per dollar spent.) ((One sense in which a 45%-55% prediction on a binary event might have some semantic meaning is that it could signal a higher willingness to adjust if new evidence or information is brought to light. But that's quite different than a confidence interval.))