Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

“We are all forecasters. When we think about changing jobs, getting married, buying a home, making an investment, launching a product, or retiring, we decide based on how we expect the future will unfold. These expectations are forecasts.”

The authors begin by democratizing the idea of forecasting. By drawing attention to the fact that making predictions is something we all do daily, they seek to make the topic of their book accessible and relatable. It is as though the reader has already taken the first step toward becoming a superforecaster.

“Every day, corporations and governments pay for forecasts that may be prescient or worthless or something in between. And every day, all of us—leaders of nations, corporate executives, investors, and voters—make critical decisions on the basis of forecasts whose quality is unknown.”

Here, the authors set out the problem that the Good Judgment Project is seeking to fix: the current low quality of forecasts, which are nevertheless used by national institutions to make imperative decisions that affect millions of lives. The authors assert that the idea that these forecasts are of unknown quality should set alarm bells ringing.

“Accuracy is seldom even mentioned. Old forecasts are like old news—soon forgotten—and pundits are almost never asked to reconcile what they said with what actually happened. The one undeniable talent that talking heads have is their skill at telling a compelling story with conviction, and that is enough.”

This quote centers on a main preoccupation of the authors: the impossibility of improving without sufficient feedback. The fact that forecasters in the media are rarely held accountable for their inaccuracies seemingly minimizes the stakes of their enterprise and allows them to get away with mediocrity. The book will go on to contrast this lack of accountability with the feedback-heavy culture of the Good Judgment Project.