In the previous story, we told you about the forecasting company Good Judgment and its worldwide team of superforecasters. Now it’s time to put them to the test.
Their crystal ball is pretty fancy, based on science and a system that has helped them outpredict competitors for 10 years. But posing questions to them requires finesse. That’s because in the land of forecasting, language really matters.
Good Judgment’s CEO, Warren Hatch, remembers the time his team was asked, Will North Korea launch a new multistage missile? “As it turned out, Kim Jong Il pressed the button and it exploded on the pad,” he says. “So did it launch? Well, if you’re a policy or political analyst looking for attempts, yeah. If you’re a defense analyst looking for capability, it did not. So getting the question right, so that you’re forecasting the same thing, is critical.”
submitted five questions. Hatch’s team helped rewrite them.) Our questions prompted immediate debate, and forecasters tinkered with their answers as new information came in. On the following pages, we’ve compiled the results (with some insightful number crunching from Good Judgment’s data scientists).
