2020's Prediction Thread

Here are some of mine. These are very rough and I could probably be persuaded on many of them to move them significantly in some direction.

By 2030 (and after January 1st, 2020),

No high-level AGI, defined as a single system that can perform nearly every economically valuable task more cheaply than a human, will have been created. 94%

No robot hand will be able to manipulate a Rubik's cube as well as a top human. 80%

No state will secede from the US. 95%

No language model will write a book without substantial aid, that ends up on the New York Times bestseller list. 97%

No pandemic will kill >50 million people. 93%

Neither Puerto Rico or DC will be recognized as states. 80%

Tradititional religion will continue to decline in the West, as measured by surveys that track engagement. 85%

Bryan Caplan will lose a bet. 75%

No US President will utter the words "Existential risk" in public during their term as president. 65%

No human will have stepped foot on Mars. 50%

At least one company sells nearly fully autonomous cars, defined as cars that can autonomously perform nearly all tasks that normal drivers accomplish. 80%

Robin Hanson will disagree with the statement, "The rate of automation increased substantially during the 2020s, compared to prior decades." 85%

Experts will recognize that top computers can reliably beat humans at narrow language benchmarks, such as those on https://super.gluebenchmark.com/. 90%

Kurzweil will lose his bet on Longbets (http://longbets.org/1/). 55%

There will be no convincing evidence of contact from extraterrestrials. 99%

Jeff Bezos will be unseated as the richest person in the world. 70%

Robust mouse rejuvenation, defined as a mouse being rejuvenated so that it lives 2500 days, will not have been demonstrated. 85%

If a survey is performed, most people in the United States will say that curing aging is undesirable. 85%

There will be another economic recession in the United States. 70%

World GDP will be higher than it was in 2019. 97%

No one will have won a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on string theory. 80%

No war larger than the Syrian Civil War by death count, according to a reputable organization, will have occurred. 65%

Donald Trump will not be convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors in his first term as president. 95%

Donald Trump will serve his entire first term as president. 92%

Donald Trump will win re-election. 55%

Roe v Wade will not be overturned. 70%

No proof that P = NP. 98%

No proof that P != NP. 90%

I'd also encourage you to link your predictions to Foretold/Metaculus/other prediction aggregator questions, though only if you write your prediction in the thread as well to prevent link rot.

Sorted approximately by strength:

The UK will leave the European Union. (95%)

Industrial / financial consolidation will continue instead of reversing, and the 'superstar cities' phenomenon will be stronger in 2030 than 2020. (90%)

The 'higher education bubble' will burst. (80%) This feels mostly like a "you'll know it when you see it" thing, but clear evidence would be a substantial decrease in the fraction of Americans going to college, or a significant decline in the wage premium for "any college diploma" over a high school diploma (while perhaps some diplomas will retain significant wage premiums). [Edit 2020-1-1: on further reflection I think this is more like 70%.]

No armed conflict between Japan and any of its neighbors. (70%)

My favorite movie released between 2020 and 2029 will be animated instead of live-action. (60%)

Queen Elizabeth II will still be alive. (30%) [This requires her to make it to 103; life expectancy for a 93-year old British woman is only 3.64 years, her mother made it to 101, her father to 56, and her sister to 71. It seems unlikely that new medical technology will make a significant difference during that time; basically the only medication I expect to be available in time to do anything useful will be metformin.] 

Emperor Emeritus Akihito will still be alive. (30%) [This requires him to make it to 96; while life expectancy for a 86-year old Japanese man is 6.3 years, he's already abdicated due to poor health.]

I predict that like 2010, a majority of these predictions will be overconfident.

• The market for Certificates of Impact will be smaller than $100K/year in 2030. ~90%.
• There will be at least 1000 points on Hacker News with "Knowledge Graph" or synonyms in the title. ~60%
• No [AGI+Superintelligence] ~98%
• The Economist will be more optimistic in 2030 than it is in Jan 1, 2020.[1] ~80%
• Judgemental prediction applications will be considered "moderately useful" for EA purposes ~40%
• There will be at least one US-based prediction market larger than PredictIt is now, in daily traffic. ~50%

I realize these are all super high-level and vague. [1] Due mostly from reversion to the mean. Things seem particularly bad right now.

Usual disclaimers apply: probabilities are not exact betting odds, I try to give quantitive assessments wherever I can but many predictions are too vague to quantify etc. If I am still alive in 2030 I will try to give my subjective assessment to what degree I agree with the predictions.

Geopolitical
1. a China will become #1 economy in the coming decade, but will experience continued economic slowdown.

2. Taiwan put under siege by China (i) economically 80% (ii) militarily 50%
conditional on (ii) the US will back down 90%
conditional on the US not backing down this will lead to a nuclear exchange between US and China 10%

3. A missile/drone strike on an aircraft Carrier, crippling the ship 4%

4. India will commit what will later be regarded by a significant fraction of Western observers as genocide in Kashmir 10 % (low confidence)

5. Economic slowdown in the West (GDP/capita growth for 2020-2030 lower than 2010-2020) 70% - a plausible story is an aging population
6. Nuclear strike anywhere in the world 5%
7. a Continuing secularisation in the Middle-East 75%
b continuing secularisation in the West 85%
8.a Subsaharan Africa continues making little gdp /capita gains 70%.
b Population will continue to boom. Fertility will fall modestly 70%
c Immigration streams to the West from 3rd World countries, particularly Africa will increase 70%

9. Smoking/drinking will continue to fall worldwide, party drugs (MDMA etc) will become much more widespread 70% & 70%
10. No economic Recession comparable with the 2008 Great Recession 85%

Politics & Culture Wars
1. Revolution in Energy will increasingly make present discussion around climate change irrelevant

2. a Trump does not win reelection 70%
b conditional on Biden winning the primary, no crazy things (i.e. somebody dieing) Biden wins 85 %

3.a Conditional on it happening, Brexit impact on UK/England GDP per capita long-term will be negligible (< 2% of GDP counterfactually)

b conditional on (a), there will still be a significant fraction of people who honestly think that Brexit was a disaster. Most people
4. Higher education bubble in US will subside (echoing Vaniver, hard to make it more concrete, more know it when you see it)

5.a Traditional media will continue to fall into irrelevance, concentrate in a few major firms. Later into the decade I expect the decline to halt, traditional media taking a specialized role for particularly high authority/ high importance news. I model this as similar to Radio still having specialized uses.
b (some) Youtube& Instagram stars will attain widespread fame and recognition in a much broader context as the Millenial generation moves towards middle age. But I do not expect them to displace current celebrity elite based on tv&movie stars, musicians, sports heroes, etc.
c followup on b), the fragmentation of assigned status will continue in the West [but not necessarily globally, as globalization homogenizes cultures].
6. What will happen with the Culture Wars? This is very hard to predict. Will the apparent trend of increased polarisation continue, or will the opposite occur?
- Straight Woke memes will become less cool with the incoming generation of young people, mostly because whatever your parents do isn't cool. But the ideas of social justice will continue their expanse, particularly in the Middle east, South America, South-east Asia & India: social justice memes are fundamentally fit in a world of increasing wealth & communication. Another fundamental force is the continuing expanse of English: new media like youtube, continuing globalization etc have given renewed impetus all over the world to learning English. Of course these movements generate their own antitheses; it seems like historically many conflicts arise from a modernizing center versus a lagging periphery.
China & East Europe seem more like a wild card here: eastern Europe seems to have strong explicitly anti- Social justice political movements while China is a surveillance state with very strong hard-Nationalistic rightwing sentiments under the population.
- Trans-rights increasingly accepted
- Alt-Right ideas increasingly normalized (Likely) - It seems that moderate right wing parties are losing hearts and minds against more radical alternatives.
- Identity politics/ voting along identity continues in strength (Likely)
- increase popularity national unity/ decreased polarisation candidates in US. After Trump I expect a backlash towards more moderate, unifying candidates.
- Right-wing populist parties in Western Europe continue to grow, will remain mostly out of governments.
but at least one right-wing populist party will be in government in a Western European country that is not Italy

Tech
1.a More babies born with edits for medical reasons 85%
b more babies born with edits for non-medical reasons 70%
c babies born with explicitly IQ edits 60%
d CRISPR or CRISPR like techniques cure >5 genetic disease 70%
2. a Discovery cure for (1) large fraction of obesity (2) large fraction of heart disease (3) Male Pattern baldness (4) Dandruff 10/10/20/20

b Conditional on a) this cure is available on the market 30%
c conditional on a) this cure works by defeating some sort of germ/biological agent 20%/30%/80%/80%
3. Note: by mini-drone I mean a small drone that one would buy in the store, not the unmanned aerial vehicles and its siblings that the US military employs.
a) mini-Drone attacck will kill major Political Figure 85%
b) mini-Drone/drone bombs will be used in major terrorist attack killing many civilians 85%
c) conditional on a or b, massive fear around drone warfare
d) UAVs will become more and more dominant.
e) Something I am not sure about: will thee US military start phasing out fighter aircraft for automated vehicles or is this perhaps one of those jobs that is very hard to automate?
4. Crazy person kills AI researcher because of vaguely AI risk type concerns 80%
5. Top ranked Starcraft Broodwar player trounced by AI by 2025 (70%) by 2030 (85%)
6.a SpaceX sends that Japanese Billionaire around the moon 55%,
b conditional on a launch, it goes wrong 10%
c SpaceX will land unmanned probe on mars by 2030 85%
d SpaceX will land a human on Mars by 2030 60%
e SpaceX will become wildly successful and highly valuable with Starlink technology 60%

f Tesla will be the largest automotive company by market cap at least once 70% [this is the only prediction that I can actually bet on, but I do not own Tesla stocks... you decide what that means]
7. Self-driving cars will finally become a practical reality -?? very uncertain, I have very little knowledge about this, I see convincing arguments for both sides. Certainly it seems that self-driving cars in some capacity - perhaps trucks driving pre-determined routes- will become a reality, but I remain uncertain. I predict I will update strongly one way or another on learning more about this subject.
8. Exoplanet that is an almost copy of earth discovered (i.e. habitable zone, water, same size etc)- Likely too vague to give quantitative estimate.
9.a) An AI will compose a hit song without significant assistance. (80%)
b) AI-assistance in arts/creative professions such as writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism), music, as well as in daily life will be widespread.

10. DeepFakes will be huge.
a) porn with DeepFakes will start seriously competing with real life performers
b) remix art with deepfakes; i.e. reshooting the (dissapointing) ending of popular tv dramas, completely redoing old films, etc etc.
c) value of videoevidence will be much less persuasive. This will have massive implications for court proceedings.

11. AI Autumn - the spectular developments we have seen recently with deep learning and related methods are unlikely to be equalled in the coming decades [just a regression to the mean argument here + there was somewhat of a compute overhang that is unlikely to be repeated] but the space of things to try seems quite large + the field is well-funded and attracting a lot of talent.

12. No Superintelligence by 2030; pretty clear. 95% Mostly a prior on complexity, reaction against hype etc.
13. a Satoshi Nakomoto (briefly) richest person in history 30%
14. >80% of cars on the road in US will be electric 80%
15. Working anti-aging intervention for mice 20% , working anti-aging for humans 10%, on the market 5%.
16.a VR entertainment will be the majority of the game market in terms of revenue - 70%
b VR entertainment will be a decided minority in terms of time spent playing. - 70%.
c VR porn will become a thing. Easy prediction here.
17. Military-grade lasers will evolve from mostly testing prototypes to usable weapons - somewhat likely
Rationalist

1. In general, Rationalist memes will become much more mainstream

a) Existential risk, in particular AI x-risk will be regularly mentioned by mainstream media- Likely
b) AI safety more generally will be a topic that commands at least 10% of the attention that global warming does - Likely

c) increased acceptance of cryonics & assisted suicide -Likely
d) HPMOR and the associated rationalist memeplex will be atleast well-known enough to need little explanation in high-brow circles.

22.a) AI Safety will be a respected academic discipline 90%

b) MIRI-style research will be a decided minority within this discipline 80%

c) MIRI will not continue their nondisclosure policy in the present form 70%

23. Effective Altruism mainstreamed significantly - 85%
Miscellaneous & Personal 1. I will become a parent 50 %
2. I change my specialization significantly 40% [It shocks me how high this is if I apply the outside view... generally applying outside view to oneself is distressing...]
3. I will die 1.28 %
4.a) Proof-assistants will be part of undergraduate math curriculum - not sure about this one; it is being done right now in an undergraduate program in London, and it seems to make sense. The undergrad math curriculum is already pretty full as is. Somewhat likely.
b) (Homotopy) Type theory will be offered as a regular module in good European Mathematics/Compsci Bachelor or Master's programs Likely

5. Programming will be offered as a serious stand-alone course at my high school. 65%
6. Significant developments in understanding agents based on Compositionality- somewhat likely

Is anyone accepting bets on their predictions?

Using a reasonable calibration method*, the set of predictions made in this thread will receive a better score than the set of those in the previous thread from 10 years ago (80%)

Nonetheless, lowering each confidence stated by a relative 10% (i.e. 70% to 63% etc.) will yield better total calibration (60%)

$\text{*}$ I don't know the math for this, but I'm assuming there is one that inputs a set of predictions and their truth values and outputs some number, such that the number measures calibration and doesn't predictably increase or decrease with more predictions.

I believe that the second one can technically lead to a paradox, but it's highly unlikely for that to occur.

As with last decade, I'm most confident about boring things, though less optimistic than I'd like to be.

Fewer than 1 billion people (combatants + civilians) will die in wars in the 2020s: 95%

The United States of America will still exist under its current Constitution (with or without new Amendments) and with all of its current states (with or without new states) as of 1/1/30: 93%

Fewer than 10 million people (combatants + civilians) will die in wars in the 2020s: 85%

The median rent per unit in the United States will increase faster than inflation in the 2020s: 80%

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will not go into force by 1/1/30: 75%

Human-driven cars will still be street-legal in all major US cities as of 1/1/30: 75%

As of 1/1/30, customers will not make purchases by giving each merchant full access to a non-transaction-specific numeric string (i.e. credit cards as they are today): 70%

Conditional on Pew Research Center releasing a survey on the topic after 1/1/28, their most recent survey by 1/1/30 will show that 60% or fewer of American adults identify as Christian: 70%

Conditional on Pew Research Center releasing a survey on the topic after 1/1/28, their most recent survey by 1/1/30 will show that 33% or more of American adults identify as religiously unaffiliated: 70%

More than half of American adults will use a Facebook product at least once per day in 2029: 60%

Real-time 24-hour news networks will still exist as of 1/1/30, and will average more than 1 million average daily viewers (in the USA) in 2029: 50%

The largest not-currently-existing US tech company (by market cap as of 1/1/30) will not have its primary HQ in the Bay Area: 35%

A song generated entirely by an AI will make one of the Billboard charts: 25%

California will put a new state constitution to a statewide vote: 10%

The human population will be more than 8 billion, and the population of India will reach 1.5 billion. 90%

India's GDP would rise up to 5 trillion dollars. 70%

India will cease to be a secular state, and communal violence will become more common. 50%

Russia's GDP will be less than 2 trillion dollars. 60%

No human being would be living on another celestial object (Moon, another planet or asteroid). 80%

USA would have less than 1000 troops in Afghanistan. 80%

A new civil war or high-level insurgency will break out in Syria. 50%

Israel would not have vacated West Bank. 80%

There will be 3000+ active nuclear warheads. 90%

Average predicted year of arrival of AGI will be revised by +10 years at-least. 40%

At least 1 more genetically modified human will be born. 100%

↑ comment by Amandango · 2020-09-07T21:30:25.613Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I noticed that your prediction and jmh's prediction are almost the exact opposite:

• Teerth: 80%: No human being would be living on another celestial object (Moon, another planet or asteroid) (by 2030)
• jmh: 90%: Humans living on the moon (by 2030)

(I plotted this here to show the difference, although this makes the assumption that you think the probability is ~uniformly distributed from 2030 – 2100). Curious why you think these differ so much? Especially jmh, since 90% by 2030 is more surprising - the Metaculus prediction for when the next human being will walk on the moon has a median of 2031.

Replies from: Teerth Aloke

↑ comment by Teerth Aloke · 2020-09-09T03:05:51.169Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Difference in intuition. Otherwise, I think that there will be no state-sponsored space colonization program- and there will be no incentive for any private organization to establish a colony - given the price of sending and sustaining.

• Meditation (or, with a small likelihood, some form of it in a different name) will become even more common and widely known. Not (yet) as widely practised as bathing every day, but as widely recommended as flossing is by dentists. (85%)
• Capital investments in Europe will grow at a faster pace than in the US. In 2019 it seems be in a 1:4 ratio ($34 billion vs $136 billion ), which will have changed to at least 1:3 (70%). (Something similar probably holds in Asia too, but I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, divide up China vs rest of Asia, etc. )
• Vegetarianism would be more popular. Currently 8% of world population is estimated to be vegetarian (as of 2018), this would increase to at least 20% (artificial meat products, if any, count as vegetarian for this measure). (75%)

A few days late, but I finally filled out my big spreadsheet of predictions. Anyone else is welcome to make a new sheet in it and add their own on the same questions!

1) The global multilateral political and economic institutions fail and relationships return to more bi-lateral and regional based systems largely replaces it. Not that something like the UN disappears only that it merely serves as a location for discussion but not seen (which is clearly is not even now) any type of global government with any authority over the member states. 70%

2) A second global financial crisis of larger scale than 2007-2009 period. 50%

3) North Korea recognized as a nuclear state. (20 - 30%). Resulting in the effective abandonment of the current non-proliferation agreements. (20%). Followed by the complete abandonment of all arms limitation agreements and the development of even more destructive weapons (to counter the growing nuclear threats). (80% -- this is already occurring)

4) A military strike on North Korea or Iran to clearly deter or eliminate the nuclear proliferation. (60%)

5) First global was of the 21st Century (possibly sparked by 4). 40%

6) South Korea and Philippines change alliance from USA to China and support it's 9 dash line claims. Taiwan war with mainland China. 35%

7) Hot, but limited war between China and USA resulting in an internal Civil War in mainland China driven by Muslim revolt in north-western China, Taiwan & Hong Kong and economic interests in southern China. (40%) China then must concede on its 9-dash line claim (50%) and recognize Taiwan's independence (coupled with Taiwan halting any support for revolts in southern mainland China) (25%) to sign peace agreement with USA. (25%). New/stronger economic & political relationships formed with Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea resulting in significant isolation of China from trade and production relationships with rest of the world. (35%) (End result here is much stronger ASEAN member economies and them becoming the gate keepers as it were to economic relations with the mainland China economy.)

8) EU either falls completed apart as a political union (but remains a close, largely open and free trade union) (40%) or fully integrates into a federation of member states under a common federal government. (35%)

9) Some country severs political ties with communist China due to both its political subterfuge and its economic threats/response and the actions of its citizens residing in other countries (such as Canada or Australia)) who insist on imposing the Chinese view of thing on local populations -- primarily violent reactions by Chinese nationals to legal free speech and criticism of CCP policies. (50%) May result in a domino effect.

10) Humans living on the moon. (90%)

11) Space economy (think resource mining and manufacturing) at or above break even. (70%)

12) First interstellar ship launch to conduct research designed specifically for extra-solar system research. (Voyager doesn't count. 80%)

13) Limited nuclear weapons (tactical) use become normal. (10%)

14) Aliens decide the galaxy has a better use for the space our solar system occupies and builds a super highway though it, destroying all human civilization. (1%)

15) The scientific community finally acknowledges we know very little about how the universe works and that we're better describes as being infants in a crib trying to make sense of the room we're in and barely able to see the larger world outside that room. (1%) (Which is not to say we cannot do lots of very useful things with the limited and incomplete knowledge we have.)

16) Cheap energy is developed and a transition plan for replacing all the existing social and economic structure built around expensive energy implemented leading to a rethink about property rights in many items and how we product and exchange -- and work. (5%) Will lead to greater autarky at smaller levels reducing some of the scarcity driven conflict in the world. (10% -- assuming cheap energy is realized and not stifled/withheld).

17) We move away from an intrusive advertising based payment approach for many of the online services/tools allowing increased protection of privacy and people in general. Advertising might still be better targeted but the repositories of the data change (perhaps become privately/individually held). Perhaps moving from a push type delivery model to that of pull. (15%)