Not only that, but that section should also include a monetary deposit that the author forfeits if his predictions turn out to be false. This would allow the readers to see how much belief the author himself has in his theories.
Of course, if one predicts something to happen a relatively long time from now, this might not work because the deposit effectively feels lost (hyperbolic discounting). For instance, I wrote an essay speculating on true AI within 50 years: regardless of how confident I am of the essay’s premises and logical chains, I wouldn’t deposit any major sums to it, simply because “I’ll get it back in 50 years” is far enough in the future to feel equivalent to “I’ll never get it back”. I have more use for that money now. (Not to mention that inflation would eat pretty heavily on the sum, unless an interest of some sort was paid.)
Were we talking about predictions made for considerably shorter time scales, then deposits would probably work better, but I still have a gut feeling that any deposits made on predictions with a time scale of several years would be much lower than was to be expected from the futurists’ actual certainty of opinion. (Not to mention that the deposits would vary based on the personal income level of each futurist, making accurate comparisons harder.)
Not only that, but that section should also include a monetary deposit that the author forfeits if his predictions turn out to be false. This would allow the readers to see how much belief the author himself has in his theories.
Of course, if one predicts something to happen a relatively long time from now, this might not work because the deposit effectively feels lost (hyperbolic discounting). For instance, I wrote an essay speculating on true AI within 50 years: regardless of how confident I am of the essay’s premises and logical chains, I wouldn’t deposit any major sums to it, simply because “I’ll get it back in 50 years” is far enough in the future to feel equivalent to “I’ll never get it back”. I have more use for that money now. (Not to mention that inflation would eat pretty heavily on the sum, unless an interest of some sort was paid.)
Were we talking about predictions made for considerably shorter time scales, then deposits would probably work better, but I still have a gut feeling that any deposits made on predictions with a time scale of several years would be much lower than was to be expected from the futurists’ actual certainty of opinion. (Not to mention that the deposits would vary based on the personal income level of each futurist, making accurate comparisons harder.)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/artificial.html gives me an access-forbidden error.
It’s at http://www.xuenay.net/artificial.html now; however, at this point in time I find it to be mediocre at best.