Metaculus Inc.
Metaculus front page
Type of businessPrivate
Available inEnglish
Founded2015 (2015)
HeadquartersSanta Cruz, California, United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
CEOGaia Dempsey
Employees
  • 25 (2023)
URLmetaculus.com
RegistrationOptional
Current statusActive

Metaculus is an American reputation-based, massive online prediction solicitation and aggregation engine.[1] One of the focuses of Metaculus is predicting the timing, nature and impact of scientific and technological advances and breakthroughs.[2][3]

Reward system

Three types of predictions can be made: probability predictions to binary questions that resolve as either 'yes' or 'no', numerical-range predictions, and date-range predictions.[2] Users can contribute to the community prediction for any given question, leave comments and discuss prediction strategies with other users.[4] Users can suggest new questions which, after moderation, will be opened to the community.[4]

Users can earn points for successful predictions (or lose points for unsuccessful predictions), and track their own predictive progress.[4] The scoring awards points both for being right and for being more right than the community.[5]

In January 2020, Metaculus introduced the Bentham Prize, which awards bi-weekly monetary prizes of $300, $200 and $100 to the first, second and third most valuable user contributions.[6] The following month, Metaculus introduced the Li Wenliang prize, which awards a number of different monetary prizes to questions, forecasts and analyses related to the COVID-19 outbreak.[7]

History

Data scientist Max Wainwright and physicists Greg Laughlin and Anthony Aguirre launched the site in 2015.[2][4]

In June 2017, the Metaculus Prediction was launched, which is a system for aggregating user predictions.[8] The Metaculus Prediction, on average, outperforms the median of the community's predictions when evaluated using the Brier or Log scoring rules.[9]

In 2021, Metaculus received an Effective altruism infrastructure fund grant worth $300k.[10] In 2022, Metaculus received a $5.5m grant from Open Philanthropy.[11] In October 2022, Metaculus received $20k funding from the FTX future fund, 3 weeks before the bankruptcy of FTX.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Predicting the Future (of Life), in Future of Life Institute published January 24, 2016 retrieved March 16, 2019
  2. 1 2 3 The power of prediction markets, in Nature, published December 17th, 2018 retrieved March 16, 2019
  3. ↑ This Site Keeps Track of Elon Musk’s Predictions About The Future, in Futurism published March 10, 2016 retrieved March 16, 2019
  4. 1 2 3 4 Metaculus: a prediction website with an eye on science and technology, in YaleNews published November 2, 2016 retrieved March 16, 2019
  5. ↑ Metaculus FAQ
  6. ↑ Besiroglu, Tamay (January 15, 2020). "The Bentham prize". Metaculus. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  7. ↑ Besiroglu, Tamay (February 13, 2020). "The Li Wenliang prize series for forecasting the COVID-19 outbreak". Metaculus. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  8. ↑ "What is the Metaculus Prediction?". Metaculus (FAQ). Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-13. ... the Metaculus Prediction uses a sophisticated model to calibrate and weight each user
  9. ↑ Forecasting the Future: Can The Hive Mind Let Us Predict the Future?, in Futurism, published September 16th 2016, retrieved March 16, 2019
  10. ↑ "May-August 2021: EA Infrastructure Fund Grants". Effective Altruism Funds. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  11. ↑ Metaculus (2022-07-28). "Metaculus Awarded $5.5M Grant to Advance Forecasting as a Public Good". Medium. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  12. ↑ Metaculus (2022-10-12). "Metaculus Launches the 'Forecasting Our World In Data' Project to Probe the Long-Term Future". Medium. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
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