Many political prognosticators were sorely humbled by the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Was it the hidden hand of Russia that tipped the scales and proved false the widespread expectation of a Clinton victory? Or were the prognosticators’ tools themselves faulty?
In this new climate of uncertainty about global politics, the office of the Director of National Intelligence has issued a blunt challenge: Can you do better?
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity in March launched the Geopolitical Forecasting Challenge. The challenge is to “develop solutions that produce probabilistic forecasts in response to numerous closed-ended forecasting questions that concern specific, objectively verifiable geopolitical events containing timeframes with deadlines and locations.” In other words, come up with a program that can accurately predict political events.
Those who haven’t registered for the challenge can still do so even though the first milestone was completed April 30, with 10 awards of $750 dispersed to the top solvers. But the challenge is accepting rolling registrations, so solvers can register at any point. The challenge wraps up Sept. 7, so there’s still…
