Some individuals are capable of reliably predicting geopolitical events with a success rate that significantly exceeds that of experts in a given field. These superforecasters' success is rooted in their skill at focusing on a few key determinants of an outcome and their exceptional willingness to update their predictions in the light of new information and arguments. It appears this can be significantly improved through training and teamwork.¹ ²

Future Horizons:

×××

5-yearhorizon

Superforecasting is better understood

The key cognitive processes underpinning superforecasting are identified, and training people to develop their superforecasting abilities becomes routine. Standardised designs for prediction markets and tournaments emerge. Expert knowledge is productively integrated with superforecasting techniques, with artificial intelligence also becoming used.

10-yearhorizon

Forecasters go mainstream

Robust evidence emerges for the real-world accuracy of superforecasters and prediction markets, and their predictions are routinely cited by journalists and policy-makers. Work continues to integrate expert evidence and incorporate predictions about extreme risks which break markedly from prevailing trends but lead to major disruption.

25-yearhorizon

Superforecasting is widely used at the highest levels

Superforecasters, prediction markets and artificial intelligence work together to create forecasts for systems that cannot easily be modelled, over a range of timescales. This approach is as well-established for the political and economic domains as weather forecasting or climate modelling, and used at the highest levels of decision support.

Research is ongoing into how effectively superforecasting can be applied to domains other than geopolitics, and how it can best be integrated with expert knowledge. The ability of superforecasters to assess extreme, disruptive risks — “black swans” such as pandemics, for example — is also an area of active debate. More research and validation are needed to legitimise its use in real-world decision-making.³

Prediction markets also harness the human ability to synthesise many types of information, but do so by aggregating predictions made by many individuals (some of whom may be superforecasters).⁴ Participants are offered financial or reputational incentives to make accurate predictions, and market mechanisms are used to establish consensus positions on political events,⁵ technological developments⁶ and corporate strategy.⁷ ⁸

The optimal design of such markets is an area of active investigation.⁹ One emerging model is “tournaments”, in which participants first make individual forecasts before being asked to collaborate in teams, then to assess other teams’ rationales and update their own predictions. One such tournament, focusing on existential risks, found that the predictions made by expert and superforecaster participants continued to be significantly different. ¹⁰

Superforecasting and prediction markets - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.