Metaculus: A Prediction Website with an Eye on Science and Technology
webThis Yale news article describes Metaculus, a science-focused prediction platform co-founded by astrophysicist Greg Laughlin. While not directly about AI safety, Metaculus has become a significant forecasting tool used by the AI safety community to track AI capability milestones and risk-related predictions.
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Summary
Yale News profiles Metaculus.com, a prediction market focused on scientific and technological outcomes, co-founded by Yale astrophysicist Greg Laughlin and physicist Anthony Aguirre. The platform aggregates probabilistic forecasts from informed participants on topics including AI, space exploration, and physics. It distinguishes itself from general prediction markets by focusing exclusively on science and technology questions.
Key Points
- •Metaculus was launched by Greg Laughlin (Yale) and Anthony Aguirre (UC Santa Cruz) to harness collective intelligence for scientific forecasting.
- •The platform correctly predicted LIGO gravitational wave discovery, AlphaGo beating a professional Go player, and LHC not finding a new boson.
- •Unlike general prediction markets, Metaculus focuses narrowly on science and technology topics including AI, robotics, and nanotechnology.
- •Participants earn points based on prediction accuracy, incentivizing well-reasoned probabilistic estimates.
- •A Nature feature generated significant academic interest, growing the platform to ~3,000 registered participants as of late 2016.
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(Illustration by Michael S. Helfenbein)
“Metaculus” things happen when you gather a wealth of well-reasoned scientific opinion and point it at the future.
That’s the premise and the promise of Metaculus.com, a prediction website that rates the likelihood of various scientific and technological outcomes. Yale astrophysicist Greg Laughlin launched the site a year ago with physicist Anthony Aguirre of the University of California-Santa Cruz and their former postdoc Max Wainwright.
“The whole idea of prediction markets, that groups of people with different perspectives can make more accurate predictions than the ‘experts,’ is almost like magic,” Laughlin said. “We wanted to harness some of that magic.”
Online prediction markets began cropping up in the late 1980s, focusing on everything from movie box office receipts to the outcome of presidential elections. They have included the Iowa Electronic Markets, PredictIt, Betfair, and Smarkets. Researchers have speculated that prediction markets are more successful when they include a diversity of informed opinions.
Yet such websites are not infallible. Perhaps the most famous recent example of this was the Brexit vote in Great Britain. Prediction markets said voters would opt to remain in the European Union; instead, voters chose to leave the EU .
As for Metaculus, it trains its forecasting eye on all things scientific. For example, a majority of Metaculus users correctly predicted that the LIGO research team would announce the discovery of gravitational waves by the end of March; a majority also correctly predicted that an Artificial Intelligence player would beat a professionally ranked human player at the ancient game of Go, and that physicists at the Large Hadron Collider would not discover a new, subatomic boson particle.
“We tend to get a core group of researchers who lay out strong arguments, with good discussions that follow,” Laughlin said. “We’re intentionally focusing on a narrow selection of topics. We’re not about sports betting, entertainment, or fashion.”
As for the forecast for Metaculus itself: A recent feature about the website in the science journal Nature prompted a wave of interest within the academic community. Metaculus now has about 3,000 registered participants.
But participation is not limited to scientists. Laughlin said the ideal Metaculus member is a well informed “science nerd” who has a passion for discovery and a desire to learn. “President Obama is kind of our target audience,” Laughlin noted.
The emphasis on science and technology is what separates Metaculus from other crowd-sourced prediction sites, Laughlin added. Typical questions include: “Will SpaceX launch for Mars in the 2018 window?” (o
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