Mantic Monday 4/18/22

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-41822

Nuclear risk, AI risk, Musk-acquiring-Twitter risk Warcasting

Changes in Ukraine prediction markets since my last post March 21:

1. Will at least three of six big cities fall by June 1?: 53% → 5%

2. Will World War III happen before 2050?: 20% →22%

3. Will Russia invade any other country in 2022?: 7% →5%

4. Will Putin still be president of Russia next February?: 80% → 85%

5. Will 50,000 civilians die in any single Ukrainian city?: 10% → 10%

    

If you like getting your news in this format, subscribe to the Metaculus Alert bot for more (and thanks to ACX Grants winner Nikos Bosse for creating it!)

Nuclear Risk Update

Last month superforecaster group Samotsvety Forecasts published their estimate of the near-term risk of nuclear war, with a headline number of 24 micromorts per week.

A few weeks later, J. Peter Scoblic, a nuclear security expert with the International Security Program, shared his thoughts. His editor wrote:

I (Josh Rosenberg) am working with Phil Tetlock's research team on improving forecasting methods and practice, including through trying to facilitate increased dialogue between subject-matter experts and generalist forecasters. This post represents an example of what Daniel Kahneman has termed “adversarial collaboration.” So, despite some epistemic reluctance, Peter estimated the odds of nuclear war in an attempt to pinpoint areas of disagreement.

In other words: the Samotsvety analysis was the best that domain-general forecasting had to offer. This is the best that domain-specific expertise has to offer. Let’s see if they line up: