Online prediction market guru gets new role

[jon-nyc]

Robin Hanson? Justin Wolfers?

No, no, the other world-renowned expert.

[LuFins Dad]

Pardon Fauci? Why would he need to pardon somebody that Trump have a Presidential commendation to?

I fucking hate Trump.

[Horace]

@jon-nyc why did you mention the name of Robin Hanson?

Edit: Never mind, he is not involved in the story. He is just the opposite end of the spectrum from what you're talking about.

[89th]

used the prediction market @Kalshi to know we won hours ahead

Yeah, I'm sure he would've "known" the Falcons were going to win when they were up 27-3 vs Tampa Bay a few years ago, too.

Gamblers gonna gamble... what slime.

[jon-nyc]

@Horace

Yeah he was a pioneer in the field. He was even hired by the DoD to develop a prediction market for national security events (eg terrorism) but the program got killed when the press found out about it. People thought it was ghoulish.

[jon-nyc]

ChatGPT summary here:

Yes, Robin Hanson was involved in the development of a prediction market for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). This initiative was known as the Policy Analysis Market (PAM) and was part of the broader FutureMAP (Futures Markets Applied to Prediction) program under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The Policy Analysis Market aimed to use prediction markets to forecast geopolitical and economic events, including potential security threats. Participants would trade on the likelihood of various future scenarios, and the market prices would reflect collective probabilities. The goal was to leverage the “wisdom of crowds” to make better-informed policy decisions.

However, PAM faced significant controversy when critics, including some U.S. senators, accused it of being a “terrorism futures market,” implying that it might allow people to bet on events like terrorist attacks. Due to the backlash, the program was canceled in 2003 before it could be fully implemented.

Robin Hanson, a pioneer in prediction markets, had advocated for their use in policy and decision-making and was a consultant for the project. He has since defended the concept, arguing that the controversy stemmed from misunderstandings of how prediction markets work and their potential benefits.