Comment by fnands
18 days ago
> They are powerful tools for forecasting complex events that can help enrich and empower folks from across a range of backgrounds.
gross. This sounds like a press release.
It's gambling dressed-up as forecasting.
18 days ago
> They are powerful tools for forecasting complex events that can help enrich and empower folks from across a range of backgrounds.
gross. This sounds like a press release.
It's gambling dressed-up as forecasting.
It might be gambling for some, but prediction markets are impressively accurate, in a way that I think merits OPs comment that the information they produce can improve lives. (Other lives will surely be destroyed by gambling...)
There's quite a bit of interesting research done on the accuracy, here's a great resource:
https://calibration.city/introduction
What value does an accurate prediction market bring? I.e. how can this information be used to improve lives (other than the person winning the bet)? I.e. even if it is sorta accurate, is this valuable to anyone?
As I see it it seems to be a way to incentivize insiders to leak information, e.g. see the alleged Google insider betting on Google actions: https://www.forbes.com/sites/boazsobrado/2025/12/04/alleged-...
Great for the person who has insider knowledge, probably not so great for Google. I wouldn't be surprized if some companies start cracking down on their employees making bank off unannounced company actions.
There are worse examples closer to home.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/white-house-briefing-fuels-in...
Your response is very dismissive in that it doesn't engage with any of the other parts of my comment that provide a lot of nuance and analysis for the issues presented.
My description, and appreciation, for these types of tools and their trade-offs comes from reading about their early proposals. I don't trade or engage with any of them in their current form.
Recommend reading early work on them by Phillip Tetlock, as well as the many criticisms and responses that came about at the time and basically covered all of the ground we're retreading today in these discussions.