Going through expiring predictions reminded me. Just as we did for 2010 and 2011, it's time for LessWrong to make its beliefs pay rent and give hostages to fortune in making predictions for events in 2012 and beyond.
Suggested topics include: Methods of Rationality updates (eg. "will there be any?"), economic benchmarks (price of gold has been an educational one for me this past year), medical advances (but be careful not to be too optimistic!), personal precommitments (signing up for cryonics?), being curmudgeonly about self-improvement, making daring predictions about the future of AGI, and so on.
As before, please be fairly specific. I intend to put most predictions on PredictionBook.com and it'd be nice if they weren't too hard to judge in the future.
(If you want advice on making good predictions, I've tried to write up a few useful heuristics I've learned. So far in the judging process, I've done pretty well this year, although I'm a little annoyed I got a Yemen prediction right but for the wrong reasons.)
Before I give my predictions for this year, a record of how I did on last year's predictions.
Was correct.
I haven't been able to judge this. It looks hard to tell but seems to be correct. However, to a large extent this being correct extended from something I didn't anticipate- it took much longer to actually implement the repeal than I expected, so the repeal took effect fairly late in the year.
I initially gave this 75% but further discussion suggested I was underconfident and so I bounced this up to 95% and was correct.
Was incorrect.
A few such scandals occurred but none of them were in churches nearly large enough. So this was incorrect.
Was incorrect.
So with this out of the way new predictions. I'm not including here any predictions that have an end date of 2013 which I've already put in PredictionBook.
The first four predictions are predictions which are updated versions of predictions from last year:
Clashes between North Korea and South Korea will result in fatalities, or the North Korean government will collapse. Confidence: 75%
The Riemann Hypothesis will not be proven in 2012. Confidence 95%
P != NP will not be resolved in 2013. Confidence 95%
General AI will not be built in 2013. Confidence: 95%
The next set of predictions is about computational complexity:
The relationship between P and BQP will not be resolved in 2012. Confidence: 85%
There will be improvement in efficient matrix multiplication in 2012 that will be discussed in at least one of the following blogs: Combinatorics and more, Shetl-Optimized, Godel's Lost Letter. Confidence: 52%
In 2012 there will be new results for either the group isomorphism problem or the graph isomorphism problem discussed at at least one of the following blogs: Combinatorics and more, Shetl-Optimized, Godel's Lost Letter. Confidence: 52%.
No improvement in factoring integers in a classical setting that has better time-asymptotics than the best current ones will be made in 2012. Confidence: 85%
The next two predictions have to do with the integer complexity problem. (Background on that can be found here.)
No one one will resolve in 2012 whether integer complexity function is asymptotic to 3log_3 n. 58%
I will coauthor at least one paper on integer complexity by 2013. Confidence: 61%
The next few predictions concern space travel and exploration.
Humans will continue to have at least one functioning probe on Martian surface or a satellite around Mars for all of 2012. Confidence: 98%
Russia will lose at least one rocket launch in 2012 . Confidence: 55%
No contact with intelligent aliens be made in 2012: Confidence 96%
The Hubble Telescope will continue functioning though 2012. Confidence: 85%
Miscellaneous predictions:
HPMOR will update at least twice in 2012. Confidence: 75%
In 2012, I will go to at least two open viewing nights for telescopes in the greater Boston area. Confidence: 58%
I will not become a vegetarian in 2012. Confidence: 80%
My mother will not read any books by Steven Pinker this year. Confidence: 85%
I will have a total LessWrong karma of at least 10,000 by the end of the year. Confidence: 75%
Meta-predictions:
At least one of the above predictions will turn out to be correct for reasons that are surprising to me. Confidence: 80%
I find this confusing; I would expect P vs. BQP to be harder to resolve than P vs. NP.