Metaculus

Summary

Metaculus is an American reputation-based, massive online prediction solicitation and aggregation engine.[1] One of the focuses of Metaculus is predicting the timing, nature and impact of scientific and technological advances and breakthroughs.[2][3]

Metaculus Inc.
Metaculus front page
Type of businessPrivate
Available inEnglish
Founded2015; 9 years ago (2015)
HeadquartersSanta Cruz, California, United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
CEODeger Turan
Employees
  • 25 (2023)
URLmetaculus.com
RegistrationOptional
Current statusActive

Reward system edit

Three types of predictions can be made: probability predictions to binary questions that resolve as either 'yes' or 'no', numerical-range predictions, and date-range predictions.[2] Users can contribute to the community prediction for any given question, leave comments and discuss prediction strategies with other users.[4] Users can suggest new questions which, after moderation, will be opened to the community.[4]

Users can earn points for successful predictions (or lose points for unsuccessful predictions), and track their own predictive progress.[4] The scoring awards points both for being right and for being more right than the community.[5]

In January 2020, Metaculus introduced the Bentham Prize, which awards bi-weekly monetary prizes of $300, $200 and $100 to the first, second and third most valuable user contributions.[6] The following month, Metaculus introduced the Li Wenliang prize, which awards a number of different monetary prizes to questions, forecasts and analyses related to the COVID-19 outbreak.[7]

History edit

Data scientist Max Wainwright and physicists Greg Laughlin and Anthony Aguirre launched the site in 2015.[2][4]

In June 2017, the Metaculus Prediction was launched, which is a system for aggregating user predictions.[8] The Metaculus Prediction, on average, outperforms the median of the community's predictions when evaluated using the Brier or Log scoring rules.[9]

In 2021, Metaculus received an Effective altruism infrastructure fund grant worth $300k.[10] In 2022, Metaculus received a $5.5m grant from Open Philanthropy.[11] In October 2022, Metaculus received $20k funding from the FTX future fund, 3 weeks before the bankruptcy of FTX.[12]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Aguirre, Anthony (January 24, 2016). "Predicting the Future (of Life)". Future of Life Institute. Archived from the original on Mar 26, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c Mann, Adam (December 17, 2018). "The power of prediction markets". Nature. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  3. ^ Robitzski, Dan (2018-12-17). "This site keeps track of Elon Musk's predictions about the future". Futurism. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d Shelton, Jim (2016-11-02). "Metaculus: a prediction website with an eye on science and technology". YaleNews. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  5. ^ Metaculus, "FAQ".
  6. ^ Besiroglu, Tamay (January 15, 2020). "The Bentham prize". Metaculus. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  7. ^ Besiroglu, Tamay (February 13, 2020). "The Li Wenliang prize series for forecasting the COVID-19 outbreak". Metaculus. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  8. ^ "What is the Metaculus Prediction?". Metaculus (FAQ). Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-13. ... the Metaculus Prediction uses a sophisticated model to calibrate and weight each user
  9. ^ Forecasting the Future: Can The Hive Mind Let Us Predict the Future?, in Futurism, published September 16th 2016, retrieved March 16, 2019
  10. ^ "May-August 2021: EA Infrastructure Fund Grants". Effective Altruism Funds. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  11. ^ Metaculus (2022-07-28). "Metaculus Awarded $5.5M Grant to Advance Forecasting as a Public Good". Medium. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  12. ^ Metaculus (2022-10-12). "Metaculus Launches the 'Forecasting Our World In Data' Project to Probe the Long-Term Future". Medium. Retrieved 2023-05-14.

External links edit

  • Metaculus website