gwern comments on New Year's Predictions Thread (2011) - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Kevin 02 January 2011 09:58AM

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Comment author: gwern 10 January 2011 11:13:37PM *  0 points [-]
  1. Oil over $100/bbl: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2122
  2. World oil production sounds like it would be a real pain to verify, so unless you have a specific data source in mind, I think I'm going to omit it - I certainly don't want to spend hours googling and ad-hoc educating myself about world oil production until I can make a guess at how to judge the prediction.
  3. AGI seems like a dupe of http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2092
  4. Kim: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2123
  5. Physics: omitting because don't know how one would judge it.

EDIT: oil has already been closed as correct. I was probably underconfident there - oil has such volatility in recent years one should expect it to go over $100/bbl even with quasi-efficient markets in mind.

Comment author: scav 11 January 2011 09:04:39AM *  0 points [-]

Thanks

2 - I've put up a more precise prediction http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2134

5 - I've put up a more precise prediction asserting a Nobel prize win for a non-string unification theory by end of 2020.

Comment author: gwern 11 January 2011 05:00:51PM 5 points [-]

5 - http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2135

No offense, but I think you are dramatically, shockingly, overconfident here at 50%. Have you ever looked at the time lag for Nobel Prizes? The lags tend to start at a few decades. Look at the recent Prize for fiber optics - that work was done, like, 50 years ago.

So, you expect a new theory to be created and worked out in all its details, get experimental support, go through the usual Kuhnian progress, and be ratified by a Nobel Prize in 10 years?

Comment author: scav 12 January 2011 01:16:07PM 1 point [-]

Wow yeah; good catch. You are of course right about the time lag, which I hadn't researched when I pulled that guess out of my arse. I think I'll retract this prediction.

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