Scott Alexander gave a 70% probability that the first Falcon Heavy launch would not be successful.
Resolved false The record shows it did not happen or was not so.
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
Judged at 31 December 2018. The claim is that the first Falcon Heavy launch fails. Success means the vehicle launched and delivered its payload to the intended orbit or trajectory; booster landing outcomes, including a lost centre core, do not count toward mission success or failure. True: the first Falcon Heavy launch took place in 2018 and did not deliver its payload to the intended orbit or trajectory (it exploded, broke up, or went to a clearly wrong orbit). Mostly true: the primary mission was only partly achieved, with a serious payload-delivery shortfall. False: the first launch took place in 2018 and delivered its payload as intended. Mostly false: no Falcon Heavy launch took place in 2018, so no unsuccessful launch happened.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Success! SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy Rocket on Historic Maiden Voyage Space.com · 6 February 2018
“The first Falcon Heavy rocket built by the private spaceflight company SpaceX soared on its maiden voyage today (Feb. 6) — a historic test flight that also sent a car toward Mars and included two confirmed booster landings.”
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E2 5 Years Ago: First Flight of the Falcon Heavy Rocket - NASA NASA · 6 February 2023
“The first demonstration flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket took place on Feb. 6, 2018, from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flight placed a Tesla Roadster, attached to its second stage, into solar orbit as far as the orbit of Mars.”
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E3 Falcon Heavy Wikipedia
“Flight No.: Launch date (UTC); Launch site; Payload; Payload mass; Orbit; Customer; Price; Outcome 1: February 6, 2018 20:45; Kennedy, LC-39A; Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster; ~1,250 kg (2,760 lb); Heliocentric; SpaceX; Internal; Success”
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E4 Falcon Heavy Wikipedia
“The initial test flight for the first Falcon Heavy lifted off on February 6, 2018, at 20:45 UTC, carrying its dummy payload,”
Reasoning
Space.com reported on the day that the first Falcon Heavy launched on 6 February 2018 and sent its car payload toward Mars (E1). NASA's retrospective confirms the flight took place on that date and placed the Tesla Roadster into a solar orbit reaching as far as Mars's orbit (E2). Wikipedia's flight table lists the outcome as Success with a heliocentric orbit (E3). The launch happened in 2018, placed its payload into a heliocentric orbit and is listed as a success (E1, E2, E3), so the prediction that it would fail is resolved false.
Cite this claim
Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander gave a 70% probability that the first Falcon Heavy launch would not be successful.” (said January 2018). Verdict: resolved false. Reliability API, claim c_fdd7704173f7, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_fdd7704173f7
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
“Reddit does not ban r/the_donald by the end of the year: 90%”
Scott Alexander gave a 90% probability that Reddit would not ban r/the_donald by the end of 2018.
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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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“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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“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.