Background
Each winter, Scott Alexander makes predictions about the year to come. The past few years, these predictions have outgrown his blog, with other forecasters and forecasting platforms participating in the tradition.
This year, Metaculus and other platforms have partnered with Scott Alexander to make this official. We are excited to launch the 50-question ACX 2023 Prediction Contest. We hope that this set can be used as a common standard to compare different forecasters and forecasting sites.
These benchmark questions have been published by Scott via Google Form and here on Metaculus. Prospective forecasters are encouraged to submit their predictions directly to both the Google Form and this Metaculus project. The contest rules are described in the announcement blog post and included below.
Contest Rules
In the Google Form, forecasters should fill in five demographic questions, and fifty forecasting questions. Please note that, to be eligible for the contest, you must forecast in the linked Google Form. Forecasting here on Metaculus is encouraged, but not sufficient to participate in Scott Alexander’s contest. Questions in the form can be answered with a percent chance, from 1 - 99.
You can either play Blind Mode or Full Mode. On Blind Mode, you can’t look at any prediction markets, or anyone else’s answers to the contest, and you can only research a maximum of five minutes per question. On Full Mode, you can look at whatever other sources you want and research for as long as you want. If you want, you can start with Blind Mode and submit another response in Full Mode later. You may want to wait until January 10 to start playing in Full Mode, see below for details.
Blind mode will probably take ~30-60 minutes. Full mode will take longer.
You can skip questions if you want, and we’ll give you an average score for that question, but you need to fill out at least 25% of questions to qualify. Scott Alexander will make more prizes available for people who fill out more questions.
Scott is planning to give out at least 4 x $500 prizes: one for the winner of Blind Mode, one for the winner of Full Mode, one for the winner of Blind Mode answering lots of questions, and one to a randomly selected participant. He will increase this if circumstances allow.
You can enter Blind Mode predictions anytime from now until January 10. Metaculus questions will implement a hidden period until then. On January 10, Scott will make anonymized versions of all Blind Mode predictions available for participants who want to try aggregation algorithms on them as part of their Full Mode strategy. You can continue entering Full Mode predictions from then until February 1.
If any of the events predicted happen by January 10 or February 1, Scott and Metaculus will remove them from the relevant competition, so that people aren’t penalized too heavily for getting their responses in early.
All questions will resolve according to Scott Alexander’s judgment, as given through future posts on Astral Codex Ten.
—You can see the questions and enter the contest here—Thank you to Scott Alexander and the broader forecasting community for initiating this contest and collaboratively designing the questions with our team!
This leaderboard is for informational purposes only. ACX 2023 Prediction Contest winners and prize payouts will be determined solely by Scott Alexander.