Scott Alexander reviews recent developments in prediction markets and forecasting, including regulatory changes, platform pivots, and debates about the field's future. Longer summary

Scott Alexander reviews recent developments in prediction markets and forecasting. He discusses the CFTC's move to further restrict prediction markets, Manifold Markets' pivot to a sweepstakes model, a superforecasting report on COVID-19 origins, and debates about the future and value of forecasting. The post also covers various prediction market probabilities on current events and links to other forecasting news. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander announces the 2024 ACX Grants program, detailing its structure, funding, and new optional 'impact market' component for charitable and scientific projects. Longer summary

Scott Alexander announces the 2024 ACX Grants program, a microgrants initiative to fund charitable or scientific projects. He explains the program's structure, including a partnership with Manifund, the funding amount ($320,000 total), timeline, application process, and types of projects likely to be funded. This year introduces an optional 'impact market' component, allowing unfunded projects to seek alternative funding through impact certificates. Scott also discusses the benefits of winning a grant beyond the monetary aspect and touches on tax implications. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander reviews the results of the Impact Market Mini-Grants test run, discussing the top projects and lessons learned about this novel charitable funding method. Longer summary

Scott Alexander reports on the results of the Impact Market Mini-Grants, a novel way of running charitable grants where investors fund promising projects and grantmakers buy credit for successes. The test run involved 18 forecasting-related projects, with judges assessing their final value. Most projects lost money for investors, but a few were highly successful. Scott discusses the top five projects, including a rationality education program at the University of Maryland, a forecasting tournament, a tool for making Kelly-optimal bets, a paper on forecasting long-term impacts, and an ambitious impact assessment project in India. He reflects on the lessons learned from this experiment, noting both successes and challenges in implementing the impact market concept. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander discusses recent events in prediction markets, including a costly prank on Manifold, debt ceiling forecasts, a study on long-term predictions, and a high-profile hyperinflation bet. Longer summary

This post covers several topics in the world of prediction markets and forecasting. It begins with the story of a Manifold user who lost $29,000 in a prank market, leading to changes in Manifold's policies. It then discusses recent predictions about the US debt ceiling, a study on long-term forecasting accuracy, and a high-profile bet about hyperinflation between Balaji Srinivasan and James Medlock. The post ends with updates on other prediction markets, including ones about open-source AI and the ACX book review contest. Shorter summary