Global Guessing Podcasts

✅ Juan Cambeiro, the Top Pandemic Forecaster on Good Judgement

Since beginning Global Guessing, we have noted that interdisciplinary approaches to forecasting have often borne positive results. Whether guests have come from the world of finance, academics, or biology, their ‘outside views’ have frequently contributed to their forecasting accuracy. And our guest this week, Juan Cambeiro, is no different.

In this episode 6 of The Right Side of Maybe, Clay and Andrew sat down with student, biostatistics student, and Metaculus summer analyst Juan Cambeiro to discuss his background in forecasting and work with Metaculus Pandemic. Juan placed first in Good Judgement Open's 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak forecasting challenge, and is currently in second place overall.

After discussing Juan's background in forecasting, we dove deep into three recent forecasts he made covering Mortgage Interest Rates, US COVID Deaths, and the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Two of the questions Juan got to the right side of maybe, while the third he ended up on the wrong side. We not only discussed what went well with his correct forecasts, but also explored potential sources of error with the third.

We also spoke with Juan about his information diet, how he goes about finding new sources, and the importance of forecasting for the world! Be sure to tune into this episode as you will learn a lot about good forecasting habits and how to perform well in tournaments.

Satopää and Salikhov on Bias, Information, and Noise Model of Forecasting (GGWP 16)

Every forecaster has wanted to know what the most important factor for improving forecasting accuracy is, but for a long time the answer was not clear. Thanks to a chance overlap of co-authors Ville Satopää and Marat Salikhov at INSEAD, however, a new paper was published alongside forecasting pioneers Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers that does a great job of providing a solution.

Their paper, “Bias, Information, Noise: The BIN Model of Forecasting,” deconstructs the forecasting process into its component parts of: Information (the inputs you use to move your forecast away from the base rate), Bias (systematic error across a number of forecasts from a single forecaster), and Noise (non-information that is registered as information in a forecast). From there they test which of these parts is most critical to the accuracy of a forecast, and posit methods to improve in these areas.

In this episode we are lucky enough to sit down with Ville and Marat to discuss the origins of this paper, its findings, and the implications for the future of forecasting. We talk about possible avenues for further research based on the exciting results from Ville and Marat’s research, and even speculate on potential applications of the research in new and interesting environments.

✅ Datscilly, the Top-Ranked Forecaster on Metaculus

In episode 5 of The Right Side of Maybe, Clay talks to Datscilly, the top-ranked forecaster on the Metaculus leaderboards, who only 18 months after first forecasting won nearly $50,000 in the IARPA Geopolitical Forecasting Challenge 2 where he placed second. How did Datscilly improve his skills so quickly? What was his strategy for excelling in a competition setting? And how is he able to get to the right side of maybe before others so quickly, so reliably, and so often? Datscilly answers these questions and more, while also diving dive into a particular forecast relating to Ebola on Metaculus which he did particularly well on.

Global Guessing: https://globalguessing.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/globalguessing 

Phillip Orchard on Geopolitical Futures, US-China Competition, Forecasting Methods (GGWP 15)

How do the biggest geopolitical risk firms approach forecasting? What’s the future of tensions between the United States and China? How hard is it to forecast far into the future? In this episode of the Global Guessing Weekly Podcast we sat down with Phillip Orchard of Geopolitical Futures to talk about all of these topics and more.

For those who aren’t aware, Geopolitical Futures is a geopolitical forecasting operation founded by George Friedman, former Stratfor Chairman and author of The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. Within the organization Phillip focuses on the Indo-Pacific, working to inform clients about risks stemming from that region of the world. Phillip is an expert in Chinese foreign policy and has developed a deep understanding of the geopolitics dynamics at play in the greater East Asian and Southeast Asian regions of the world. He even speaks some Thai!

Watch until the end to hear a new rapid fire question we gave Phillip given his areas of interest/expertise. And although this isn’t The Right Side of Maybe, we did ask Phillip about some specific forecasts he’s completed that we felt were notable, so enjoy our discussion of some forecast post-mortems. You can find Phillip on Twitter: @PhillipOrchard.

Global Guessing: https://globalguessing.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/globalguessing

✅ How Superforecaster Carolyn Meinel Predicted the 2001 Code Red Worm Attack

What do you get when you combine a veteran superforecaster with an experienced hacker and innovator? You get our guest for episode 4 of The Right Side of Maybe!

This week we spoke with Carolyn Meinel—CTO of ISIT Austin, hacker and author, and top-ranked superforecaster—about her experience in the hacking world, forecasting best practices and frameworks, as well as Carolyn’s prediction about the Code Red worm which turned out on the right side of maybe. If you have interest in the intersection of forecasting and cyberwarfare, or want to be graced with interesting anecdotes about the science world from the 1970s to 2000s, this is the episode for you.

Find Carolyn Meinel: https://twitter.com/cmeinel
Global Guessing: https://globalguessing.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/globalguessing 

An Interview with Gaia Dempsey, CEO of Metaculus (GGWP 14)

What is Metaculus' origin story? Who runs it now and what do they have planned for the future? How will Metaculus' role within the forecasting ecosystem shift as time goes on? These are all questions that any avid forecaster might be curious about, and today we were able to get some answers! In this episode of the Global Guessing Weekly Podcast, we sat down with a very special guest to discuss the answers to these questions and to talk about the forecasting community writ large: Gaia Dempsey, CEO of Metaculus.

Quantified forecasting wasn't always at the fore of Gaia's mind. She used to work a tech entrepreneur, helping to run and grow companies in the augmented reality space. But in 2019 things changed and she was lured by Metaculus' founding group of scientists to join the company.

As she touches on in our interview, forecasting and her past in alternate reality technology, while seemingly quite different on the surface, have many commonalities. Namely, the focus on human augmentation as the path forward for technological innovation. And Gaia has taken this to heart with the way that she leads Metaculus. So definitely tune in to hear about Gaia's story and the moves she's making now to change the forecasting game forever!

Gaia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fianxu/
Metaculus: https://www.metaculus.com/
Metaculus on Twitter: https://twitter.com/metaculus/

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A Metaculus Mondays Special | 2021 Israel-Palestine Conflict (GGWP 13)

What’s been going on with Israel and Palestine since last Monday? How far along in the conflict are we? Is this flare-up between these two nations any different from past years?

In this special combined episode of the Geopolitical Guessing Weekly Podcast and Metaculus Mondays, we walk you through an internally-generated set of questions about the conflict which we forecasted this week. Instead of answering a single question related to a potential ceasefire or death-tally, we decomposed the conflict into six questions that we felt give a good high-level view of where we are in the conflict, and where it may end up. And as there was no question on this topic on Metaculus this week, we determined our own resolution criteria as well!

Read the episode, get our sources and data, and find the Metaculus questions at globalguessing.com.

Michael Hilliard of The Ride Line Podcast on Afghanistan, Donbass, and Beijing Olympics (GGWP 12)

What can we expect to happen in Afghanistan after the United States withdraws its troops? What is going on in the Donbass? How likely is it that any country boycotts the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing? We answer all these questions and more in this episode.

In Episode 12 of the Global Guessing Weekly Podcast we chatted with Michael Hilliard, host of The Red Line Podcast. Every two weeks Michael sits down with three experts to unpack niche issues in the world of geopolitics. From elections to regional disputes to commodities, the Red Line covers a wide array of topics which will surely be of interest to a lot of our viewers. We discussed all of this with Michael, before covering some hot topics in geopolitics today as well as diving into the world of quantified forecasting as it related to geopolitics. Michael is a geopolitical whiz and a pleasure to speak with, so we hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did!

The Red Line Podcast: https://www.theredlinepodcast.com/
The Red Line Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRedLinePod
Michael Hilliard Twitter: https://twitter.com/MikeHilliardAus

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Tom Liptay and Michael Story on Founding Maby & Forecasting Adoption (GGWP 11)

How do companies use forecasting? When will forecasting, as we practice it at Global Guessing, become more common and mainstream? What tools can I use to forecast better? If you’re curious about the answers to any of these questions, then this episode is for you!

In this week’s episode of the Global Guessing Weekly Podcast we chatted with Tom Liptay and Michael Story, co-founders of Maby, Superforecasters, and former alumnus of Good Judgement. Maby is a forecasting platform created to help companies and investors forecast more accurately. Companies often have internal ways of forecasting revenues or market trends, but few use the systematic and scientific techniques and methodologies of quantified forecasting that we like to explore at Global Guessing. Hear about Maby, and Tom & Michael’s journey to forecasting in this exciting episode.

Tom Liptay: https://twitter.com/TLiptay

Michael Story: https://twitter.com/MWStory

Website: https://globalguessing.com/​​

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlobalGuessing​​

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-guessing/

Note: We originally planned for this episode to come out next week. However, due to a scheduling issue we had to push this episode forward. This is why you'll hear us reference the episode as episode 12 rather than 11.

✅ How Superforecaster Tom Liptay Got COVID Right

How does a world-renowned superforecaster compare to public health experts when forecasting the future of the pandemic? We spoke with one to find out. Tom Liptay is a PhD, CPA, investor, and superforecaster with Good Judgement Project. Amongst the top forecasters, he is among the top-ranked. Tom co-founded Maby, a platform that provides companies and organizations with the requisite tools to make quality forecasts for their business, or other exogenous issues to their operations.

In episode 3 of The Right Side of Maybe, we talked to Tom about a series of Covid-19-related predictions he made on Maby and how they compared with public health experts'. Tom shared a lot of useful insights for new and expert forecasters alike looking to make better, more valuable predictions.

Find Tom's predictions here: https://www.maby.app/covid/

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