131 min listen
Seven: Prof Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it better
Seven: Prof Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it better
ratings:
Length:
137 minutes
Released:
Apr 12, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Have you ever been infuriated by a doctor's unwillingness to give you an honest, probabilistic estimate about what to expect? Or a lawyer who won't tell you the chances you'll win your case?Their behaviour is so frustrating because accurately predicting the future is central to every action we take. If we can't assess the likelihood of different outcomes we're in a complete bind, whether the decision concerns war and peace, work and study, or Black Mirror and RuPaul's Drag Race.Which is why the research of Professor Philip Tetlock is relevant for all of us each and every day.In this conversation from 2019, we discuss how his work can be applied to your personal life to answer high-stakes questions, like how likely you are to thrive in a given career path, or whether your business idea will be a billion-dollar unicorn — or fall apart catastrophically. Full transcript, related links, and summary of this interviewThis episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on June 28, 2019. Some related episodes include:• #7 – Julia Galef on making humanity more rational, what EA does wrong, and why Twitter isn’t all bad• #11 – Dr Spencer Greenberg on speeding up social science 10-fold & why plenty of startups cause harm. • #15 – Prof Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise• #30 – Dr Eva Vivalt on how little social science findings generalize from one study to another• #40 – Katja Grace on forecasting future technology & how much we should trust expert predictions.• #48 – Brian Christian on better living through the wisdom of computer science• #78 – Danny Hernandez on forecasting and measuring some of the most important drivers of AI progressSeries produced by Keiran Harris.
Released:
Apr 12, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (12)
Two: Dr Toby Ord on why the long-term future matters more than anything else & what to do about it: Toby Ord makes the case that of all the people whose well-being we should care about, only a small fraction are alive today. The rest are members of future generations who are yet to exist. Whether they’ll be born into a world that is flourishing or disin by Effective Altruism: An Introduction – 80,000 Hours