This is one of my favorite books. Now you can learn the art of and science of prediction!
Professor Philip Tetlock of Upenn and Wharton Business School, has been studying forecasting for over 35 years. Tetlock was curious if experts were good at predicting geopolitical events. So in 1984, he created the most comprehensive study on expert judgement in the scientific literature. Tetlock created a forecast tournament. He collected about 28,000 predictions from 284 experts, over a 20 year period.
After careful analysis, Tetlock found the experts’ forecasts were only slightly better than luck, and they did worse than algorithms! The more famous the forecaster, the worse their predictions! Tetlock described the study in his book,”Expert Political Judgement.”
The CIA was interested in Tetlock’s work. They asked him to create a forecast tournament between the CIA and Tetlock’s group. Tetlock picked and trained ordinary people to compete against the CIA. What were the results of the tournament? Tetlock’s best forecasters beat the CIA forecasters by over 30%!! And these forecaster didn’t even have access to classified information like the CIA had! These forecasters became known as the Superforecasters.
This book is about these Superforecasters. Tetlock describes their personalities, thought process, and the techniques they use to make predictions.
Below are my notes:
What are the traits of Superforecasters?