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Anders_H comments on Prediction Markets are Confounded - Implications for the feasibility of Futarchy - Less Wrong Discussion

14 Post author: Anders_H 26 January 2015 10:39PM

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Comment author: Anders_H 30 January 2015 10:41:29PM *  0 points [-]

You could have a market that estimates P(A|B) directly using the reversal mechanism (called-off bets). However, I maintain that this will give identical estimates as the markets I proposed. These things are probabilities, they follow the rules of probability logic.

The point I was trying to illustrate, was not that it is impossible to estimate P(A|B), but rather that P(A|B) is not the quantity that a rational decision maker needs in order to optimize for A.

I agree that using a market that directly estimates P(A|B) might have been a better example, because it avoids readers going in the wrong direction when they try to figure out what is going on. However, changing this will take some non-trivial rewriting of the text. I will try to do that when I have more time on my hands.

Your point about the markets predicting themselves is interesting. I was imagining a democracy informed by prediction markets rather than a pure futarchy. However, if the voters are influenced by the market, it does indeed predict itself to some extent. I don't think this is a major problem, but I will keep thinking about it. I have relatively high confidence that my argument for prediction markets being confounded does not rely on this.

Comment author: leplen 02 February 2015 09:59:06PM 0 points [-]

Given how you have set this problem up, what do you think will be the relative prices of the 4 contracts you specified?

Comment author: Anders_H 02 February 2015 11:37:41PM 0 points [-]

In the scenario I provided, the contracts will be traded at the following prices after the demon reveals his information:

Hillary elected and US nuked: $14.3 (1/7 of $100) Hillary elected and US not nuked: $28.6 (2/7) Jeb elected and US nuked: $14.3 (1/7) Jeb elected and US not nuked: $42.9 (3/7)

Like you said, if people change their votes based on the market, the prices may be distorted by the market predicting itself.