Definitely agree that narrow questions can lose the spirit of it. The forecasting community can hedge against this by having a variety of questions that try to get at it from “different angles”.
For example, that person in 1970 could set up a basket of questions:
Percent of GDP that would be computing-related instead of rocket-related.
Growth in the largest computer by computational power, versus the growth in the longest distance traveled by rocket, etc.
Growth in the number of people who had flown in a rocket, versus the number of people who own computers.
Changes in dollars per kilo of cargo hauled into space, versus changes in FLOPS-per-dollar.
Of course, I understand completely if people in 1970 didn’t know about Tetlock’s modern work. But for big important questions, today, I don’t see why we shouldn’t just use modern proper forecasting technique. Admittedly it is laborious! People have been struggling to write good AI timeline questions for years.
I like your list!
Definitely agree that narrow questions can lose the spirit of it. The forecasting community can hedge against this by having a variety of questions that try to get at it from “different angles”.
For example, that person in 1970 could set up a basket of questions:
Percent of GDP that would be computing-related instead of rocket-related.
Growth in the largest computer by computational power, versus the growth in the longest distance traveled by rocket, etc.
Growth in the number of people who had flown in a rocket, versus the number of people who own computers.
Changes in dollars per kilo of cargo hauled into space, versus changes in FLOPS-per-dollar.
Of course, I understand completely if people in 1970 didn’t know about Tetlock’s modern work. But for big important questions, today, I don’t see why we shouldn’t just use modern proper forecasting technique. Admittedly it is laborious! People have been struggling to write good AI timeline questions for years.