Philip E. Tetlock

Forecasting is an unusual activity because the uncertainty inherent in it means that even the world's best forecasters are often wrong.

Barb's work with her partner and Penn faculty colleague Phil Tetlock has revolutionized our understanding of what it takes to generate what they call superforecasters.

simple probability training can add tremendous value.

A key ingredient in that training is to encourage people to look at relevant reference points when making estimates.

Do you need to do this kind of research to make every forecast in your life? Like whether it will rain tomorrow or what TV show you'll like most in the year ahead? That probably wouldn't be a great use of time.

But for big decisions, it's a great idea.

You might also pick up a copy of Superforecasting, The Art and Science of Prediction, a terrific book on this topic that was co-authored by Barb's partner and collaborator, Phil Tetlock, and the journalist, Dan Gardner.

You've been listening to Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this was embraced by Philip Tetlock, famous predictor, forecaster guy, right? Yeah.

And this tweet of Akim's, and what he wrote was, people who have been in research fields develop a felt sense that most, quote, research...

in almost any field that isn't exactingly technical, is research theater.

But what are your thoughts on AI? Where do you think things are going and based on the state of things now?

I'm always in favor of sort of reasoning by analogy and saying Daniel Kahneman and Philip Tetlock.

You've got to look at base rates, right? What are the base rates? I would say let's take Uber drivers.

Okay, there are a lot of Uber drivers.

That's why I was so excited about building this market.

You mentioned this, right? Like Tetlock had done this analysis about super forecasters.

He's asking who the super forecasters are.

And he would put the elites or the geopolitical experts and put them against random dudes.

And it died unexpectedly.

He was about my age, fit, awesome guy, really a wonderful man, as you'll hear.

So this is a reissue of an episode that I recorded with him in 2015 when he came to Portland and we hung out and recorded there.

But I saw Steve again in Thailand.

I never would have known or cared.

But he didn't.

That's the kind of guy he was.

Anyway, I don't know what he was doing in Mexico.

Right.

But the key thing here, you know, when I started the company in 2018, a few years before that, Philip Tetlock did.

Right,

the University of Pennsylvania.