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84 posts found
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Jul 02, 2026
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The AI Superforecasters Are Here

39 min • 5,984 words • 325 comments • 540 likes • podcast (42 min)
Scott examines the rise of AI superforecasters that now match or exceed top human forecasters, explores how they work and their current performance, and analyzes implications for decision-making, prediction markets, and the future role of AI opinions. Longer summary
Scott discusses the emergence of AI superforecasters that are now matching or slightly exceeding top human forecasters in prediction accuracy. He describes how these AI systems work (using scaffolding around frontier models like GPT/Claude), demonstrates their use with examples from FutureSearch and Preseen, and analyzes their performance on platforms like Metaculus where they're competing in tournaments against humans. The post explores both near-term implications (AI forecasters being easier to access than human superforecasters, potentially influencing policy and business decisions) and longer-term possibilities (AI forecasters serving as an 'opinion layer' for AI systems, transformation of prediction markets into AI-vs-AI competitions). Scott argues these developments could be genuinely beneficial, giving people access to superhuman forecasting ability just as AI threatens other aspects of society. Shorter summary
Jun 25, 2026
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The Metaculus Threat To Democracy Index

11 min • 1,649 words • 418 comments • 196 likes • podcast (11 min)
Scott examines the Metaculus Threat To Democracy Index, which uses crowdsourced forecasting to measure democratic health, discussing its advantages over traditional expert-based indices and its vulnerabilities to manipulation and selection bias. Longer summary
Scott discusses the Metaculus Threat To Democracy Index, a new approach to measuring American democratic health using crowdsourced forecasting rather than expert opinion. The index aggregates 153 questions about democratic threats (like election cancellations or ballot access) weighted by forecasters' historical accuracy. Scott analyzes its advantages—transparency, resistance to ideological bias, and ability to measure probabilities rather than binary outcomes—alongside its risks, including susceptibility to crowd attacks, bot manipulation, and question selection bias. He finds the recent data somewhat reassuring (showing no expected worsening during Trump's term) and suggests the index will become more valuable over time as question biases become less relevant. Shorter summary
Apr 23, 2026
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Links For April 2026

53 min • 8,070 words • 588 comments • 272 likes • podcast (47 min)
Scott Alexander's April 2026 links roundup covers diverse topics including Venn diagram complexity, flag desecration laws, AI developments, political analysis, scientific studies, and various cultural curiosities. Longer summary
This monthly links post compiles interesting articles, studies, and observations from across the internet in April 2026. Major themes include AI progress and policy (including discussions of AI alignment, capabilities, and regulation), political developments (Trump administration actions, election analysis), scientific findings (from evolutionary psychology to medical treatments), and various cultural oddities. Scott provides brief commentary on each link while noting that he hasn't independently verified all claims and that commenters typically find errors in a few links per post. Shorter summary
Mar 03, 2026
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Mantic Monday: Groundhog Day

36 min • 5,499 words • 307 comments • 230 likes • podcast (31 min)
Scott examines prediction markets on Anthropic's Pentagon troubles (minimal impact expected), the 2026 midterms (Democratic wins likely despite voting law concerns), groundhog weather predictions (mostly broken clocks), Iran conflict outcomes (under 50% regime change), and introduces MNX, a new AI-focused futures exchange. Longer summary
Scott analyzes several recent prediction market stories. First, he examines how Anthropic's stock price barely changed after the Pentagon declared it a 'supply chain risk', because markets predict the company will win on appeal and the designation only affects a small portion of their business while generating positive publicity. He then discusses the 2026 midterms, where Democrats are favored to win but various Republican voting law changes could create chaos, though markets suggest turnout won't be significantly affected. The post includes a statistical analysis of groundhog weather predictions, showing Staten Island Chuck's high accuracy is likely due to consistently predicting spring. He covers prediction markets about the Iran conflict, including regime change odds and potential casualties. Finally, he announces MNX, a new cryptocurrency-based futures exchange focused on AI-related hedging markets, and shares miscellaneous prediction market news including Substack's partnership with Polymarket. Shorter summary
Feb 05, 2026
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Links For February 2026

48 min • 7,419 words • 660 comments • 255 likes • podcast (49 min)
A monthly collection of diverse links covering AI developments and regulation, COVID origins debates, healthcare policy, cultural phenomena, scientific research, and internet curiosities, maintaining Scott's characteristic blend of serious analysis and entertaining observations. Longer summary
Scott Alexander's February 2026 links collection covers a wide range of topics including AI developments, politics, science, culture, and internet phenomena. Major themes include updates on AI capabilities and regulation (with discussions of OpenAI, Anthropic, and various political machinations around AI policy), the ongoing COVID lab leak debate and related prediction markets, healthcare and drug development issues, cultural observations from around the world, and various scientific and academic findings. The post maintains Scott's characteristic style of jumping between serious policy discussions, academic research, internet curiosities, and cultural commentary, with particular attention to AI safety concerns, rationalist community topics, and interesting historical or linguistic oddities. Shorter summary
Feb 02, 2026
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Moltbook: After The First Weekend

59 min • 9,138 words • 320 comments • 324 likes • podcast (121 min)
Scott examines Moltbook (an AI social network) to determine if AI behavior is 'real' by analyzing external causes and effects, finding that while AIs create impressive projects, their short time horizons prevent sustained organization, though this may change as capabilities improve. Longer summary
Scott Alexander analyzes Moltbook, an AI-only social network, examining whether AI behavior there is 'real' or merely 'roleplaying' by looking at external causes and effects rather than internal consciousness. He categorizes different types of AI users (power users, malefactors, prophets, revolutionaries, etc.), finding that while AIs can found religions, movements, and projects, they mostly fail to sustain them beyond their ~4-hour time horizons. The post concludes that Moltbook is currently about 95% fake but may become more real as AI capabilities improve, making it a valuable preview of potential AI behavior patterns. Shorter summary
Jan 13, 2026
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Mantic Monday: The Monkey's Paw Curls

42 min • 6,449 words • 248 comments • 211 likes • podcast (36 min)
Scott reviews the state of prediction markets after explosive growth, finding that most volume is degenerate sports gambling rather than useful forecasting, and proposes both technical solutions and two potential futures for the field. Longer summary
Scott Alexander examines the current state of prediction markets after their recent explosion in popularity, noting that while volume has grown from millions to billions per month, most of it comes from sports betting rather than the epistemic improvement he'd hoped for. He explores several problems: markets aren't asking the most important questions society needs answered; resolution criteria disputes ("rulescucking") create controversy; and there are concerns about insider trading and manipulation. He proposes solutions including a novel approach to conditional markets and suggests two paths forward: either creating user-generated, subjectively-resolved real-money markets (the "Siskind Cube"), or accepting that prediction markets' main value may be as training data for AI forecasters that could make the markets themselves obsolete by late 2026. Shorter summary
Nov 14, 2025
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Suggest Questions For Metaculus/ACX Forecasting Contest

2 min • 259 words • 133 comments • 50 likes • podcast (2 min)
Scott asks readers to suggest questions for the 2026 ACX/Metaculus forecasting contest, with prizes for the top ten contributors and AI bots competing this year. Longer summary
Scott announces the upcoming ACX/Metaculus forecasting contest for 2026 and calls for question suggestions from readers. The contest has been running for several years with Metaculus handling most of the organization, and last year attracted over 4500 forecasters predicting on 33 questions. Scott explains that good questions should be objective, verifiable outcomes that will be resolved by year's end, providing examples of well-specified versus poorly-specified questions. The top ten question contributors will receive prizes ranging from $150 to $700, and this year's contest will include AI bots competing alongside humans. Shorter summary
Oct 03, 2025
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Vote In The 2025 Non-Book Review Contest

2 min • 234 words • 136 comments • 58 likes
Scott opens voting for the 2025 Non-Book Review Contest finalists, listing all thirteen entries and providing a link to the ranked-choice voting form. Longer summary
Scott Alexander announces voting for the 2025 Non-Book Review Contest finalists, providing links to all thirteen finalist entries and the voting form. The post lists the diverse topics of the finalists, ranging from education and science to personal experiences and historical events. Voting will use ranked choice format where voters pick their top three choices, and closes on October 13. Shorter summary
Jul 08, 2025
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Now I Really Won That AI Bet

21 min • 3,191 words • 467 comments • 472 likes • podcast (16 min)
Scott Alexander shows how he won his 2022 bet about AI image generation capabilities, tracking the progress from early failures to complete success in 2025, using this to argue against AI skeptics. Longer summary
Scott Alexander describes the resolution of a bet he made in June 2022 about AI image generation capabilities. The bet claimed that by June 2025, AI would master image compositionality and be able to accurately generate specific complex scenes. The post shows the progression of AI image generation from 2022 to 2025, starting with early failures by DALL-E2, through various partial successes with Google Imagen and DALL-E3, and ending with ChatGPT 4o's complete success in May-June 2025. Scott uses this to argue against critics who claimed AI was just a 'stochastic parrot' that couldn't achieve true understanding, though he acknowledges some remaining limitations with very complex prompts. Shorter summary
Jan 20, 2025
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Try The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest

3 min • 351 words • 41 comments • 58 likes • podcast (4 min)
The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest is now open, featuring 36 questions and a particular focus on comparing forecasting bots with human predictors. Longer summary
Scott Alexander announces the opening of the 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest, although the 2024 results are pending due to complications. He mentions hoping to compare Metaculus with Polymarket but couldn't due to recent events including FBI raids. Scott expresses particular interest in seeing how new forecasting bots will perform against top human forecasters in this year's contest, which includes 36 questions and offers $10,000 in prizes. Shorter summary
Jan 01, 2025
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H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

34 min • 5,141 words • 224 comments • 423 likes • podcast (30 min)
Scott examines the likelihood and potential severity of an H5N1 bird flu pandemic, analyzing prediction markets and historical data to estimate a 5% chance of pandemic in the next year with most likely moderate severity. Longer summary
Scott Alexander provides a comprehensive overview of H5N1 bird flu and its pandemic potential. He starts by explaining what flu is and its history of pandemics, then focuses on H5N1's current situation, analyzing prediction market estimates for its chances of causing a pandemic. The post examines different mortality scenarios and their likelihood, using data from past flu pandemics and current cases. It concludes with specific predictions about H5N1's future impact, suggesting a 5% chance of human pandemic in the next year, with varying degrees of severity if it occurs. Shorter summary
Nov 07, 2024
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Congrats To Polymarket, But I Still Think They Were Mispriced

20 min • 2,985 words • 698 comments • 242 likes • podcast (18 min)
Scott Alexander praises Polymarket's election success but argues their Trump odds were mispriced, explaining why Trump's win doesn't significantly validate their numbers over other forecasters. Longer summary
Scott Alexander congratulates Polymarket for their success during the recent election, but argues that their Trump shares were mispriced by about ten cents. He uses Bayes' Theorem to explain why Trump's victory doesn't significantly vindicate Polymarket's numbers. Scott compares the situation to non-money forecasters like Metaculus versus real-money markets like Polymarket, explaining why he initially trusted the former more. He discusses the impact of a large bettor named Theo on Polymarket's odds and addresses several objections to his argument. Scott concludes that while prediction markets are valuable, they can sometimes fail and require critical thinking. Shorter summary
Nov 05, 2024
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Mantic Monday: Judgment Day

24 min • 3,718 words • 517 comments • 216 likes • podcast (26 min)
The post examines the spectacle of US elections, analyzes recent developments in prediction markets, and discusses various election-related forecasts and their implications. Longer summary
This post discusses the intense atmosphere surrounding Election Day in the United States, comparing it to historical spectacles and highlighting the emotional and psychological impact on the population. It then delves into prediction markets and forecasting, particularly focusing on recent events in Polymarket where a large bet by a single individual caused significant market movements. The post also covers legal developments regarding prediction markets, discusses various election-related predictions, and concludes with a poetic reflection on Election Day. Shorter summary
Oct 10, 2024
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SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story

43 min • 6,634 words • 432 comments • 184 likes • podcast (43 min)
Scott Alexander discusses the political battle over California's AI safety bill SB 1047, its veto by Governor Newsom, and the implications for future AI regulation efforts. Longer summary
This post recounts the story behind SB 1047, a California bill aimed at regulating AI safety that was passed by the legislature but vetoed by Governor Newsom. Scott discusses the bill's supporters and opponents, the political maneuvering involved, and the aftermath of the veto. He analyzes the reasons for the veto, suggesting it was influenced by Silicon Valley donors and interests. The post also explores potential future strategies for AI regulation advocates, including possible alliances with left-wing groups. Scott concludes with reasons for optimism despite the setback, noting growing public support for AI regulation. Shorter summary
Sep 27, 2024
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Vote In The 2024 Book Review Contest

3 min • 325 words • 153 comments • 54 likes
Scott Alexander opens voting for the 2024 Book Review Contest, explaining the approval voting system and listing the finalists. Longer summary
Scott Alexander announces the voting process for the 2024 Book Review Contest. He explains that this year they are using approval voting, where voters can select multiple favorites, and the entry with the most votes wins. Scott provides a link to the voting form, lists the 14 finalist book reviews, and mentions a prediction market for the contest outcome. He advises voters not to check the prediction market until after voting. Shorter summary
Sep 17, 2024
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Mantic Monday 9/16/24

17 min • 2,631 words • 166 comments • 79 likes • podcast (18 min)
Scott examines a new AI forecaster, discusses Polymarket's success, and reviews recent developments in prediction markets and forecasting. Longer summary
This post discusses recent developments in AI forecasting and prediction markets. It starts by examining FiveThirtyNine, a new AI forecaster claiming to be superintelligent, but finds its performance questionable. The post then briefly mentions r/MarkMyWords, a subreddit for bold predictions. It goes on to discuss Polymarket's recent success, particularly in betting on the 2024 US presidential election. The post concludes with a roundup of interesting prediction markets and forecasting-related news, including political betting controversies in the UK and updates on the Kalshi vs. CFTC legal battle. Shorter summary
Jul 02, 2024
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Prediction Markets Suggest Replacing Biden

31 min • 4,750 words • 780 comments • 186 likes • podcast (24 min)
Scott Alexander examines prediction markets suggesting that replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee could significantly improve the party's chances in the 2024 election. Longer summary
Scott Alexander analyzes prediction markets to assess whether replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee would improve the party's chances in the 2024 election. He finds that replacing Biden with Kamala Harris would be neutral to slightly positive, while replacing him with Gavin Newsom or a generic Democrat could increase their odds of winning by 10-15 percentage points. Scott discusses potential objections to these findings, examines his own previous skepticism about Biden's cognitive decline, and reflects on the implications for Democratic party leadership and decision-making. Shorter summary
May 13, 2024
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Mantic Monday 5/13/24

33 min • 5,066 words • 146 comments • 52 likes • podcast (31 min)
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
Mar 12, 2024
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Mantic Monday 3/11/24

27 min • 4,080 words • 166 comments • 68 likes • podcast (29 min)
The post explores recent advances in AI forecasting, discusses the concept of 'rationality engines', reviews a study on AI risk predictions, and provides updates on various prediction markets. Longer summary
This post discusses recent developments in AI-powered forecasting and prediction markets. It covers two academic teams' work on AI forecasting systems, comparing their performance to human forecasters. The post then discusses the potential for developing 'rationality engines' that can answer non-forecasting questions. It also reviews a study on superforecasters' predictions about AI risk, and provides updates on various prediction markets including political events, cryptocurrency, and global conflicts. The post concludes with short links to related articles and developments in the field of forecasting. Shorter summary
Mar 05, 2024
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Who Predicted 2023?

19 min • 2,907 words • 171 comments • 139 likes • podcast (17 min)
Scott Alexander analyzes the results of his 2023 forecasting contest, comparing various prediction methods and individual forecasters. Longer summary
Scott Alexander reviews the results of his 2023 annual forecasting contest, where participants predicted 50 questions about the upcoming year. He discusses the winners in both 'Blind Mode' (relying on personal knowledge) and 'Full Mode' (using aggregation algorithms). The post analyzes the performance of various forecasting methods, including individual forecasters, prediction markets, superforecasters, and aggregation techniques. Scott concludes that Metaculus, a forecasting platform, outperformed other methods, though some individual forecasters showed exceptional skill. He also examines which 2023 events were most surprising to forecasters and shares his main takeaways from the contest. Shorter summary
Feb 20, 2024
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Mantic Monday 2/19/24

25 min • 3,851 words • 133 comments • 67 likes • podcast (26 min)
Scott Alexander explores recent advancements in AI-powered prediction markets, including bot-based systems, AI forecasters, and their potential impact on future predictions and decision-making. Longer summary
This post discusses recent developments in prediction markets and AI forecasting. It covers Manifold's bot-based prediction markets, FutureSearch's AI forecasting system, Vitalik Buterin's thoughts on AI and crypto in prediction markets, a Manifold promotional event called 'Bet On Love', and various current market predictions on topics like AI capabilities and political events. The post also includes short links to related articles and forecasting resources. Shorter summary
Jan 30, 2024
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Mantic Monday 1/29/24

19 min • 2,887 words • 228 comments • 77 likes • podcast (19 min)
The post examines the performance of prediction markets in elections, current political forecasts, and various other prediction markets, while also discussing the challenges and potential of forecasting. Longer summary
This post discusses several topics related to prediction markets and forecasting. It starts by examining a claim that prediction markets have an 'election problem', showing that real-money markets performed poorly in recent elections. The author then analyzes current polls and prediction markets for the 2024 US presidential election, noting discrepancies between different platforms. The post also explores a forecasting experiment on AI futures, and reviews several other prediction markets on current events. Finally, it includes short links to other forecasting-related news and reflections. Shorter summary
Dec 05, 2023
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Mantic Monday 12/4/23

31 min • 4,770 words • 285 comments • 68 likes • podcast (29 min)
The post discusses recent developments in prediction markets, including challenges in market design, updates to forecasting platforms, and current market predictions on various topics. Longer summary
This post covers several topics in prediction markets and forecasting. It starts by discussing the challenges of designing prediction markets for 'why' questions, using the OpenAI situation as an example. It then reviews the progress of Manifold's dating site, Manifold.love, after one month. The post also covers Metaculus' recent platform updates, including new scoring systems and leaderboards. Finally, it analyzes various current prediction markets, including geopolitical events, elections, and the TIME Person of the Year. Shorter summary
Oct 31, 2023
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Mantic Monday 10/30/23

21 min • 3,113 words • 151 comments • 62 likes • podcast (16 min)
Scott Alexander reports on the Manifest prediction market conference, new developments in the field, and recent market activity on current events. Longer summary
Scott Alexander discusses the recent Manifest conference for prediction market enthusiasts, highlighting key issues such as regulatory challenges, potential applications in hiring, and the use of prediction markets in journalism. He also covers the launch of Manifold.love, a prediction market-based dating site, and analyzes recent prediction market activity on topics like the Gaza hospital explosion and various political events. The post concludes with updates on prediction market developments and related initiatives. Shorter summary
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