Scott Alexander will still be at his current job at the end of 2016.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?
What would count as true or false
Judge whether the event happened; the 95% probability is not part of the test. 'Current job' means the job Scott Alexander held when he made the prediction (his medical/psychiatric post at that time). True: he was still in that same position on 31 December 2016. Mostly true: he was with the same employer in a slightly different role, for example moving to the next stage of the same training programme. False: he had left that job, or moved to a different employer, before the end of 2016, as shown by his own scoring of the prediction or by dated accounts of his employment.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (5)
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E1 2017 Predictions: Calibration Results Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 2 January 2018 Own record
“I overestimated the success of my diet, my savings plan, my travel plans my job start date, my long-FAQ-making ability, and my future housing search”
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E2 2017 Predictions: Calibration Results Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 2 January 2018 Own record
“66. I will take the job I am currently expecting to take: 90%”
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E3 To The Great City! Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 3 July 2017 Own record
“Back when I first left the Bay Area to take this position four years ago, I wrote myself a letter.”
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E4 To The Great City! Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 3 July 2017 Own record
“Last Friday I said goodbye to my patients, handed over my pager, and left Our Lady Of An Undisclosed Location for the last time.”
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E5 To The Great City! Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 3 July 2017 Own record
“So I’m happy to be able to announce that I’ve just accepted a psychiatrist position in the San Francisco metropolitan area”
Reasoning
In his July 2017 blog posts, Scott Alexander says he took his position about four years earlier [E3] and left that hospital on the Friday before the post [E4]. Read together, that suggests he was still in the job at the end of 2016. But all the support comes from his own ordinary blog posts, not an official record or an independent source. The evidence also doesn't include his scoring of the 2016 prediction: E1 and E2 cover his 2017 predictions instead. The judges treated the claim as unresolvable because the only evidence is his own blog posts, and his scoring of the 2016 prediction is not among the evidence.
Cite this claim
Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander will still be at his current job at the end of 2016.” (said 25 January 2016). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_aa7dda33c3c1, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_aa7dda33c3c1
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More prediction claims by Scott Alexander
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Resolved true
“I actually remember and grade these predictions publicly sometime in the year 2023: 90%”
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Mostly true
“Our scenario focuses on coding in particular because we think coding is what starts the intelligence explosion.”
The authors of the scenario think coding is what will start the intelligence explosion.
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Mostly true
“We expect that as the AI labs become more capable, they tell the government about this because they want government contracts, they want government support.”
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Mostly true
“In our scenario, that starts with cyber warfare, the government sees that these AIs are now as capable as the best human hackers, but can be deployed at humongous scale.”
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Resolved true
“So they become extremely interested and they discuss nationalizing the AI companies.”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.