No joke intended, but how much more skeptical are you, percentage-wise, of numerical probability estimates than vague, natural language probability estimates? Please disguise your intuitive sense of your feelings as a form of math.
This may be one reason why people are reluctant to assign numbers to beliefs in the first place. People equate numbers with certainty and authority, whereas a probability is just a way of saying how uncertain you are about something.
When giving a number for a subjective probability, I often feel like it should be a two-dimensional quantity: probability and authority. The “authority” figure would be an estimate of “if you disagree with me now but we manage to come to an agreement in the next 5 minutes, what are the chances of me having to update my beliefs versus you?”
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This. I’m skeptical of almost every numerical probability estimate I hear unless the steps are outlined to me.
No joke intended, but how much more skeptical are you, percentage-wise, of numerical probability estimates than vague, natural language probability estimates? Please disguise your intuitive sense of your feelings as a form of math.
Ideally, deliver your answer in a C-3PO voice.
40 percent.
This may be one reason why people are reluctant to assign numbers to beliefs in the first place. People equate numbers with certainty and authority, whereas a probability is just a way of saying how uncertain you are about something.
When giving a number for a subjective probability, I often feel like it should be a two-dimensional quantity: probability and authority. The “authority” figure would be an estimate of “if you disagree with me now but we manage to come to an agreement in the next 5 minutes, what are the chances of me having to update my beliefs versus you?”
Techniques for probability estimates by Yvain is the best we have.