ClaimsPeople

Scott Alexander

Scott Alexander is a writer known for his blogs Astral Codex Ten and Slate Star Codex and for fiction including Unsong.

775 claims collected, 234 researched, 81 resolved. Report of 4 November 2026, method 0.1.0+8bea457b.

Scores by kind of claim

Each kind of claim is scored on its own, out of 100: the share that held up, with the range it likely falls in. Fewer resolved claims give a wider range.

  • Factual claims

    Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

    80 72 88

    Medium confidence, 35 factual claims resolved. From 10 documents, 2014 to 2026; 15 documents sampled from 35 candidates found.

    Not scored: 46 unresolvable, 9 checkable only against their own records.

  • Predictions

    Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?

    70 62 78

    Medium confidence, 44 predictions resolved. From 7 documents, 2016 to 2025; 15 documents sampled from 35 candidates found.

    Not scored: 67 unresolvable, 10 checkable only against their own records. 19 more fall due later.

    Does not yet allow for how likely each prediction was when made.

  • Promises

    Commitments to the person's or organisation's own future action, with something to deliver: was it delivered?

    Insufficient record: 2 promises resolved, 5 needed for a score.

All types combined: 75 (likely 69 to 80, high confidence), from 79 claims: 35 factual claims, 44 predictions. It mixes kinds of claim in different proportions for different people, so compare people kind by kind.

Scott Alexander's claims

35 claims, sorted by newest said. Choose a claim to read it in full.
VerdictKindSaidClaimTopic
Mostly true Factual 19 Oct 2026 MNX, a project of Manifold Markets co-founder Stephen Grugett, is a real-money prediction market on AI. Factual · 19 Oct 2026 Economics and markets
Resolved true Factual 19 Oct 2026 Goodheart Labs is working on Common Notes, described as Twitter Community Notes but for everything. Factual · 19 Oct 2026 Technology
Mostly true Factual 5 Oct 2026 Reader Nikita Sokolsky has finished obtaining extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English. Factual · 5 Oct 2026 Their own work or organisation
Resolved true Factual 5 Oct 2026 Rob Ennals, who made this year's ACX book review contest site, has gathered reviews from earlier years into epubs. Factual · 5 Oct 2026 Their own work or organisation
Mostly true Factual 5 Oct 2026 Physicians For AI Safety exists, wants to talk to physicians interested in AI safety, and has an open letter such people can sign. Factual · 5 Oct 2026 Field building and careers
Mostly true Factual 3 Apr 2025 Through history, people have been reluctant to admit an AI is truly intelligent. Factual · 3 Apr 2025 Philosophy, ethics and society
Resolved true Factual 3 Apr 2025 Nvidia originally came from gaming. Factual · 3 Apr 2025 Economics and markets
Resolved true Factual 3 Apr 2025 Scott Alexander said he thinks the AI alignment community did not really expect LLMs. Factual · 3 Apr 2025 AI safety and alignment
Resolved true Factual 10 Dec 2024 Solitary confinement for prisoners might be more expensive than standard imprisonment. Factual · 10 Dec 2024 Philosophy, ethics and society
Resolved true Factual 10 Dec 2024 Following Roodman, Scott's original cost-benefit analysis of prison gave two conclusions: one counting prisoners' own suffering and one not. Factual · 10 Dec 2024 Philosophy, ethics and society
Mostly true Factual 10 Dec 2024 Most of the benefits of prison come from incapacitation rather than deterrence. Factual · 10 Dec 2024 Philosophy, ethics and society
Resolved true Factual 10 Dec 2024 Last month's issue of Asterisk (November 2024) contains an interview with Skarbek, which Scott thinks will be online shortly. Factual · 10 Dec 2024 Their own work or organisation
Resolved true Factual 10 Dec 2024 In the original post, Scott said that although murder was down in El Salvador, the statistics didn't really show a decline in theft. Factual · 10 Dec 2024 Other
Resolved true Factual 20 Feb 2023 As of 2023 the technology to offer polygenic scores to consumers definitely exists. Factual · 20 Feb 2023 Technology
Mostly true Factual 20 Feb 2023 As of early 2023 nobody is talking about technological unemployment, because unemployment rates are historically low. Factual · 20 Feb 2023 AI, the economy and work
Mostly true Factual 20 Feb 2023 impute.me may provide the consumer polygenic score service Scott Alexander predicted, but it has made no public waves. Factual · 20 Feb 2023 Technology
Resolved true Factual 20 Feb 2023 In 2018 Scott Alexander partly abandoned his usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for rough guesses in his five-year predictions. Factual · 20 Feb 2023 Their own work or organisation
Resolved true Factual 14 Mar 2022 In February 2022 Scott Alexander suggested that Manifold Markets add a loan feature to boost investment in long-term markets. Factual · 14 Mar 2022 Their own work or organisation
Mostly true Factual 14 Mar 2022 The probability shown in the chart in the post was almost monotonically decreasing, lower each day than the day before. Factual · 14 Mar 2022 Other global risks
Resolved true Factual 14 Mar 2022 A team described as some of the best superforecasters in the world won the CSET-Foretell forecasting competition by a large margin, described as around twice as good as the next-best team in relative Brier score. Factual · 14 Mar 2022 Science and research methods
Mostly true Factual 14 Mar 2022 Early in the Russia-Ukraine war prediction markets gave Ukraine poor odds, and by March 2022 they were much more optimistic about Ukraine. Factual · 14 Mar 2022 Other global risks
Mixed Factual 14 Feb 2021 The NYT's original pitch was interest in how Scott Alexander warned early about the coronavirus pandemic and urged mask-wearing before it was standard advice. Factual · 14 Feb 2021 Their own work or organisation
Mostly true Factual 14 Feb 2021 Scott Alexander said the NYT's characterisation was true only insofar as he once expressed agreement with an unrelated Charles Murray position: that telling poor people to learn to code is insufficient and a stable income is needed. Factual · 14 Feb 2021 Their own work or organisation
Mixed Factual 14 Feb 2021 In early 2020, Scott Alexander learned the New York Times wanted to write an article about him. Factual · 14 Feb 2021 Their own work or organisation
Mixed Factual 14 Feb 2021 Scott Alexander wrote a 30,000-word condemnation of one of the right-wing figures named in the article on his blog a few years ago. Factual · 14 Feb 2021 Their own work or organisation
Resolved true Factual 14 Feb 2021 Scott Alexander has never personally been involved in the tech industry. Factual · 14 Feb 2021 Their own work or organisation
Mostly true Factual 22 Jan 2019 Scott Alexander made predictions in February 2018 for the next five years. Factual · 22 Jan 2019 Their own work or organisation
Mostly true Factual 22 Jan 2019 Cryptocurrency crashed during 2018, after Bitcoin was around $15,000 when Scott Alexander made his 2018 predictions. Factual · 22 Jan 2019 Economics and markets
Mostly true Factual 25 Jan 2016 Scott Alexander makes predictions at the start of every year and scores them at the end of each year. Factual · 25 Jan 2016 Their own work or organisation
Resolved true Factual 30 Sep 2014 A recent Implicit Association Test study using political parties found unconscious partisan biases were about 1.5 times as strong as unconscious racial biases. Factual · 30 Sep 2014 Science and research methods
Mostly true Factual 30 Sep 2014 The Nazis' outgroup was the almost-identical German Jews rather than the culturally distant Japanese. Factual · 30 Sep 2014 Philosophy, ethics and society
Mostly true Factual 30 Sep 2014 Estimates of the genetic contribution to political association range from 0.4 to 0.6. Factual · 30 Sep 2014 Science and research methods
Mostly true Factual 30 Sep 2014 Heritability of attitudes toward gay rights is estimated at 0.3 to 0.5, slightly higher than the heritability of homosexuality. Factual · 30 Sep 2014 Science and research methods
Mostly true Factual 30 Sep 2014 Researchers have studied belief congruence theory, that belief differences matter more than demographics in forming in-groups and outgroups, for decades. Factual · 30 Sep 2014 Philosophy, ethics and society
Resolved true Factual 30 Sep 2014 Scott Alexander is a psychiatrist by profession. Factual · 30 Sep 2014 Their own work or organisation
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Factual Economics and markets

“MNX is a real-money prediction market on AI.”

Scott Alexander, ACX author 19 October 2026 Open Thread 456 (Astral Codex Ten)

MNX, a project of Manifold Markets co-founder Stephen Grugett, is a real-money prediction market on AI.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

What would count as true or false

Judge as of 2026-10-19. The claim has two parts: (a) MNX is a real-money prediction market focused on AI; (b) it is a project of Manifold co-founder Stephen Grugett. TRUE: MNX's site, launch announcements or reporting show that it was a prediction market on AI-related questions where users traded with real money (not play money), and that Stephen Grugett led or founded it. MOSTLY TRUE: both parts hold, with a minor slip, such as Grugett being one of several founders, or AI being the main focus rather than the only one. MIXED: only one part holds, for example it is a real-money AI market but not Grugett's project, or it is Grugett's AI market but uses only play money. MOSTLY FALSE: MNX was only announced or waitlisted, with no live real-money trading by that date. FALSE: there is no such project, or it is not a prediction market on AI.

Evidence

  1. Announcing MNX, the AI Exchange Manifold Markets (Substack newsletter) · 18 February 2026
    “We’re proud to announce we’re launching a new platform to do real-money trading: MNX.”
  2. Announcing MNX, the AI Exchange Manifold Markets (Substack newsletter) · 18 February 2026
    “MNX is a separate company from Manifold entirely.”
  3. MegaETH-based MNX raises $6.4 million pre-seed at $40 million valuation to build AI-focused futures exchange The Block · 10 June 2026
    “MNX was formed last fall by Grugett and Ian Philips, co-founders of prediction markets platform Manifold Markets, to create a trading venue for AI-related assets”
  4. MegaETH ecosystem MNX launched, introducing futures for private AI companies such as OpenAI ChainCatcher · 13 October 2026
    “According to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency exchange MNX, developed by the prediction market platform Manifold Markets, officially launched on Tuesday, offering futures contracts linked to the valuations of private AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Moonshot.”

Reasoning

Manifold's launch announcement calls MNX "the AI Exchange", a new platform for real-money trading, and says it is a separate company from Manifold (E1, E2). The Block reports that Stephen Grugett and Ian Philips, co-founders of Manifold Markets, formed MNX as a trading venue for AI-related assets (E3). ChainCatcher, citing CoinDesk, reports that MNX officially launched on 2026-10-13, before the judge date, with futures contracts tied to the valuations of private AI companies (E4). Both parts of the claim largely hold, with minor slips: Grugett co-founded MNX with Philips rather than alone [E3], and reporting describes MNX as an AI-focused futures exchange rather than using the term prediction market [E3][E4].

Cite this claim

Scott Alexander, “MNX, a project of Manifold Markets co-founder Stephen Grugett, is a real-money prediction market on AI.” (said 19 October 2026). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_09d4321e9d69, method 0.1.0+8bea457b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_09d4321e9d69

Claims without a verdict

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