A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Although first-generation forecasting tournaments are well-established mechanisms for improving the probabilistic accuracy of short-run forecasts, they rarely give weight to the quality of explanations for forecasts. Hearing the probability of an event is hovering at 42%, without explanation, will leave listeners as dissatisfied as readers of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when they saw Deep- Thought’s final answer to the ultimate question: 42.

The goal of this tournament is to blend rigor and relevance: to integrate the explicit probabilistic reasoning of superforecasters with deep causal knowledge of subject-matter experts—and combine these insights into messages that help the attentive public make more accurate forecasts themselves. Good luck!

Message from Carolyn Meinel: Sorry, the website for this competition is password protected. Also, I gave my word not to reveal the questions. However, I can reveal that they are based upon concerns that the human race might go extinct by 2100.

In addition, I can reveal the research paper that launched this competition: Improving Judgments of Existential Risk: Better Forecasts, Questions, Explanations, Policies, 18 Jan 2022 Ezra Karger of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Pavel D. Atanasov of Pytho LLC; and Philip Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania.

The first phase of this tournament ended Oct. 31, 2022. The tournament's technical administrator, Amory Bennett, says, "We also hope to continue this tournament, perhaps in perpetuity, asking you and some new forecasters for updates semi-occasionally in the coming years. We will be in touch with more information about that soon!"