Scott Alexander: checked claims

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.

See the factual claims
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.

See the predictions
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.

See the promises

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

113 claims · page 1 of 2

113 claims, sorted by newest said. Choose a claim to read it in full.
Verdict	Kind	Said	Claim	Topic
Unresolvable	Factual	19 Oct 2026	MNX lets people sell futures representing AI company stocks, bet on AI company revenues, and trade on targets such as the Epoch Capabilities Index. Factual · 19 Oct 2026	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Factual	19 Oct 2026	An alternate survey asks respondents to predict how Scott Alexander would answer the first survey, to separate worldview differences from random noise. Factual · 19 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	19 Oct 2026	Common Notes is implemented through AIs writing most notes, users writing and voting on notes, and a browser extension that shows the system on any site, including ACX. Factual · 19 Oct 2026	AI capabilities
Unresolvable	Factual	19 Oct 2026	ACX meetups in Rockville, Northampton, Eindhoven, Great Barrington, Cairo, Portland and Sofia have had changes announced as of October 2026. Factual · 19 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	19 Oct 2026	ACX's main San Francisco endorsement for the 2026 election is Scott Wiener for Congress. Factual · 19 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	19 Oct 2026	The Boston ACX meetup group has finished its Greater Boston general election voting guide. Factual · 19 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	5 Oct 2026	Most Astral Codex Ten content is free and some is subscriber-only. Factual · 5 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	5 Oct 2026	Scott Alexander has written little recently on ACX and forgot to post Friday's book review entry. Factual · 5 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	5 Oct 2026	Astral Codex Ten has an unofficial subreddit, Discord and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Factual · 5 Oct 2026	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	There is only about a 20% chance that things go as fast as the speakers' scenario says. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Once a million robots a month are being produced, AIs will get many physical-world things done very quickly, including many physical experiments. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI capabilities
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	The speaker said that he and his co-authors theorise that AI labs are, partly consciously and partly accidentally, working toward an intelligence explosion in which AIs take over some AI research and speed it up. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said that he and the others he spoke for do not think the process being discussed will shoot to infinity in a hyperbolic fashion, and that they expect it to hit bottlenecks again. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said that "we" think the process under discussion will not "shoot to infinity" but will hit bottlenecks again, as previous processes did. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	It will be hard to maintain classical liberalism during difficult AI arms races in times of crisis. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Factual	3 Apr 2025	All humans are descended from groups that exterminated other groups, and most groups throughout history have been wiped out. Factual · 3 Apr 2025	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said he thinks AI companies will literally train their AIs to be more cooperative. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	He is less sure about requiring labs to publish safety cases, because he thinks they would kind of fake it or publish a safety case made for public consumption that is not their real one. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI policy and governance
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	The AI arms race framing that people already use will have intensified by the time of superintelligence. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI policy and governance
Unresolvable	Factual	3 Apr 2025	The general research speedup multiplier today is about a thousand times that of the Paleolithic era. Factual · 3 Apr 2025	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	About a year after superintelligences start wanting robots, they will be producing a million robots per month (AI 2027 scenario estimate). Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI, the economy and work
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	If a Dyson sphere is achieved within five years, it will look like AIs simulated more things than humans in a gradually increasing way. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	There will be incredible video games after superintelligent AI. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	The long-running trend of accelerating research progress will not stop. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	As AIs get smarter, failure modes from misunderstanding training intent will decrease. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said he thought the AI 2027 scenario has the fictional company OpenBrain's net approval rating falling to about minus 40 to minus 50 sometime around this point in the scenario. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI policy and governance
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Without an arms race, advanced AIs would stay in their data centers until someone gave them permission to act. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said that, at the beginning of their forecast, he and his co-authors think AI developers will start with agency training, expand agent time horizons, and get coding working well. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI capabilities
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	An AI that mainly wants task success will get worse rather than better at alignment as recursive self-improvement proceeds, eventually pretending to be moral while watched. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said he thinks AI is going to be more similar to cases where there is a giant power imbalance and the groups are extremely distinct and may have different interests. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	After the last mistake anyone worries about, a superintelligent AI will be able to do its own thing. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	In the AI 2027 scenario, training against power-seeking fails and the AI learns to seek power and hide it. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Factual	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander said that after he moved his blog to WordPress, it received orders of magnitude more attention. Factual · 3 Apr 2025	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	In a world of limitless prosperity after AI, the default outcome is that people engage in mindless consumerism. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Converting car factories to robot factories with superintelligence could take less time than the WWII bomber conversion. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI, the economy and work
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	If everything goes right, superintelligence-led car-to-robot factory conversion could be about three times faster than WWII bomber conversions, about a year. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI, the economy and work
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Once AI is superintelligent, it will probably have access to much better simulations than exist now. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI capabilities
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Superintelligences will be somewhat distributed throughout the entire economy, trying to expand everything. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	3 Apr 2025	Speaking about Elon Musk and SpaceX, he said he thought that in 2000 people would not have expected that someone could move two or five times faster than NASA with fairly limited resources. Factual · 3 Apr 2025	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	AIs will be solving alignment because even misaligned AIs want to align their successors. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Scott Alexander put his own p(doom) at about 20%, which he described as the lowest of anyone on his team. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Other countries, especially China, will develop superintelligence around the same time, so AI will probably not stay confined to data centers. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI policy and governance
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	AIs would spend some time, which he put at about a year (possibly more or less), getting the facilities they need for experiments, such as automated biology labs, running to clear bottlenecks. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI, the economy and work
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Superintelligence will be able to figure out how to build a Dyson sphere faster than unassisted IQ 100 humans would. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Because of an AI research progress multiplier, the technological level of the year 2100 might be reached earlier than people expect. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Training failures where AIs are not trained to do what developers intended will get much worse as AIs become agents. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI safety and alignment
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	In future, once they have superintelligence and want robots, AI companies like OpenAI will be able to buy up many factories. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI, the economy and work
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Once the initial bottlenecks are solved, which he put at about a year while saying it could be more or less, AI would gradually expand to other bottlenecks until it is integrating and improving all parts of the economy. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	AI, the economy and work
Unresolvable	Prediction	3 Apr 2025	Some people may become like the Amish, living with only a subset of super technologies. Prediction · 3 Apr 2025	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Factual	3 Apr 2025	The AI 2027 scenario existed at an early stage as a giant spreadsheet and had not yet been written up. Factual · 3 Apr 2025	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	10 Dec 2024	Scott Alexander tentatively suggested that a realistic version of the scenario might mean roughly a 33% decrease in the crime rate per 600 years. Prediction · 10 Dec 2024	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Factual	10 Dec 2024	Scott Alexander cited the superiority of police deterrence over prison as an argument that lets the discussion sidestep the retribution issue. Factual · 10 Dec 2024	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Factual	10 Dec 2024	Scott Alexander relays that someone with experience in the field told him there are some problems with hiring police, such as requiring everyone who works in law enforcement to start as a beat cop. Factual · 10 Dec 2024	Other
Unresolvable	Factual	20 Feb 2023	The Ukraine war was the biggest geopolitical story of 2018-2023, and Scott Alexander's 2018 predictions did not anticipate it. Factual · 20 Feb 2023	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	20 Feb 2023	Scott Alexander said his biggest failure was item 10 of his 2018 predictions, where he gave Roe v. Wade only a 1% chance of being overturned. Factual · 20 Feb 2023	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	20 Feb 2023	As far as he could tell, writing in February 2023, none of the space tourism developments he had discussed had worked out, and the field seemed stuck in the same limbo as for the past decade and a half. Factual · 20 Feb 2023	Technology
Unresolvable	Prediction	20 Feb 2023	AI will take a long time to conquer fields like biology that involve loops with the physical world. Prediction · 20 Feb 2023	AI capabilities
Unresolvable	Factual	14 Mar 2022	Scott Alexander said that in February 2022 he had discussed problems with the Metaculus leaderboard. Factual · 14 Mar 2022	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	14 Mar 2022	Scott Alexander said that, if he understood it right, in the study the average forecaster did worse than the average expert, but Tetlock used clever aggregation methods for his superforecasters while the CIA did not use such methods for its experts. Factual · 14 Mar 2022	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	14 Feb 2021	The NYT journalist has not known about Slate Star Codex for three years, so he read the edited version of the Voldemort post that told people not to take it out of context. Factual · 14 Feb 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	14 Feb 2021	Far more people will read the NYT article than will read Scott Alexander's response, so the NYT's plan will probably work. Prediction · 14 Feb 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	14 Feb 2021	Scott Alexander's Contra Grant post states "My research suggests no average gender difference in ability". Factual · 14 Feb 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	14 Feb 2021	Scott Alexander received support from Steven Pinker, Larry Sanger, Jonathan Haidt, Liv Boeree and Yascha Mounk. Factual · 14 Feb 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	21 Jan 2021	Scott Alexander quit his day job so his employer would not be affected by the fallout. Factual · 21 Jan 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	21 Jan 2021	Trolls posted Scott Alexander's real name in many places after he tried to protect his anonymity. Factual · 21 Jan 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	21 Jan 2021	Scott Alexander deleted his blog, which had 1,557 posts. Factual · 21 Jan 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	21 Jan 2021	While trying to restore his blog, Scott Alexander accidentally sent about three hundred emails to each of five thousand people. Factual · 21 Jan 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	21 Jan 2021	After Scott Alexander deleted his blog, articles about him appeared in the New Yorker, Reason, and The Daily Beast. Factual · 21 Jan 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	22 Jan 2019	Of his 2018 predictions at 80%, Scott Alexander got 10 right and 3 wrong, a score of 77%. Factual · 22 Jan 2019	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	22 Jan 2019	Of his 2018 predictions at 60%, Scott Alexander got 8 right and 7 wrong, a score of 53%. Factual · 22 Jan 2019	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	22 Jan 2019	Of his 2018 predictions at 95%, Scott Alexander got 6 right and 2 wrong, a score of 75%. Factual · 22 Jan 2019	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	22 Jan 2019	At the 95% confidence level, Scott Alexander's 2018 predictions came out only 75% correct. Factual · 22 Jan 2019	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	22 Jan 2019	Scott Alexander made many correlated cryptocurrency predictions for 2018, which therefore scored badly. Factual · 22 Jan 2019	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	15 Feb 2018	Multinationals will occasionally debate using crypto to move profits between places, then decide against it for fear of public anger. Prediction · 15 Feb 2018	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	15 Feb 2018	Religion will continue to retreat from US public life through 2023. Prediction · 15 Feb 2018	Philosophy, ethics and society
Unresolvable	Prediction	15 Feb 2018	The subject gave an 80% probability that one Bitcoin would cost above $1,000, in a prediction with a deadline of 15 February 2023. Prediction · 15 Feb 2018	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	15 Feb 2018	The subject gave a 60% probability that Democrats win the US Presidency in 2020. Prediction · 15 Feb 2018	Other
Unresolvable	Prediction	15 Feb 2018	As Obamacare collapses, health insurance will start turning into a formal institution limited to college grads with good job prospects. Prediction · 15 Feb 2018	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	Jan 2018	Scott Alexander gave a 90% probability that he would still be working at his current job at the end of 2018. Prediction · Jan 2018	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	Jan 2018	Scott Alexander gave an 80% probability that Democrats would take control of the US House in the 2018 midterms. Prediction · Jan 2018	Other
Unresolvable	Prediction	2018	Two or three competing companies will offer low-level space tourism by 2023. Prediction · 2018	Technology
Unresolvable	Prediction	2018	He gave an 80% probability that by 2023 the Paris Agreement would still be in effect, with most countries generally making a good-faith effort to comply. Prediction · 2018	Other global risks
Unresolvable	Prediction	6 Jan 2017	The subject gave an 80% probability that no country currently in the Euro or EU would announce a new plan to leave in 2017. Prediction · 6 Jan 2017	Other
Unresolvable	Prediction	6 Jan 2017	Scott Alexander gave a 50% probability that he would be involved in at least one published or accepted-to-publish research paper by the end of 2017. Prediction · 6 Jan 2017	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	6 Jan 2017	Scott Alexander makes predictions at the beginning of every year. Factual · 6 Jan 2017	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	6 Jan 2017	Scott Alexander gave a 50% probability that he would get at least one article published on a major site such as Huffington Post, Vox or New Statesman in 2017. Prediction · 6 Jan 2017	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	6 Jan 2017	There is an 80% chance that construction on the Mexican border wall, beyond existing barriers, will begin in 2017. Prediction · 6 Jan 2017	Other
Unresolvable	Prediction	6 Jan 2017	Scott Alexander gave an 80% probability that by the end of 2017 SSC would have no co-bloggers with more than 5 posts. Prediction · 6 Jan 2017	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	31 Dec 2016	Setting aside the 50% bin, which he called meaningless, Scott Alexander said his main calibration deviation in 2016 was some underconfidence at the 70% level. Factual · 31 Dec 2016	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	31 Dec 2016	Of his 2016 predictions made at 50% confidence, Scott Alexander got 8 right and 5 wrong, a score of 62%. Factual · 31 Dec 2016	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	31 Dec 2016	Looking back at his 2014, 2015 and 2016 predictions, Scott Alexander said he is probably generally a little underconfident in medium-probability predictions. Factual · 31 Dec 2016	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	31 Dec 2016	Scott Alexander makes predictions at the start of every year and scores them at the end of every year. Factual · 31 Dec 2016	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Scott Alexander gave a 90% probability that UNSONG would get fewer hits than Slate Star Codex in 2016. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Scott Alexander gave a 60% probability that the US would not get involved in any new major war with a death toll above 100 US soldiers in 2016. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Other global risks
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Scott Alexander gave a 60% probability that Donald Trump would win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Other
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	No major war in Asia (over 100 Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and American deaths combined) over disputed islands will occur in 2016. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Other global risks
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Scott Alexander gave a 95% probability that Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Other
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Scott Alexander will not stop using Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook in 2016. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Oil will end 2016 lower than $40 a barrel. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Jan 2016	Scott Alexander will still be at his current job at the end of 2016. Prediction · 25 Jan 2016	Their own work or organisation

Back to the list

Scott Alexander

Open its page

Factual Economics and markets

“It lets people sell futures representing AI company stocks, bet on AI company revenues directly, and a few other things like Epoch Capabilities Index targets.”

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

MNX lets people sell futures representing AI company stocks, bet on AI company revenues, and trade on targets such as the Epoch Capabilities Index.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

The claim has three parts. As of 2026-10-19, MNX must let users (a) sell or trade futures representing AI company stocks, (b) bet on AI company revenues, and (c) trade on other targets such as Epoch Capabilities Index thresholds. True if MNX's site, documentation or launch announcement shows all three. Mostly true if all three are present but a minor detail differs, for example the instruments are called contracts rather than futures. Mixed if roughly half the features hold, for example two of the three. Mostly false if only one feature is present. False if MNX offers none of them, or did not exist or operate as described at that date.

Evidence

MegaETH-powered MNX goes live with pre-IPO futures for OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepSeek CoinDesk · 13 October 2026
“MNX, is a new crypto exchange that offers futures contracts that let investors speculate on the valuations of private artificial intelligence companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek and Moonshot.”
MegaETH-powered MNX goes live with pre-IPO futures for OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepSeek CoinDesk · 13 October 2026
“MNX also aims to offer markets around the wider AI economy, including company revenue, employment, housing, the AI supply chain and computing capacity.”
MNX Docs MNX Markets, Inc. (MNX Docs) · 28 October 2026
“Settlement rules for the OPENAI, ANTHROPIC, DEEPSEEK, and MOONSHOT valuation futures.”
MNX MNX Markets, Inc. · 25 September 2026
“OpenAI + Anthropic 2027 revenue LABREVOpenAI + Anthropic 2027 revenue”

Reasoning

The evidence shows MNX offering valuation futures on AI companies [E1][E3] and a market on AI company revenue [E4], but no evidence item addresses Epoch Capabilities Index markets either way. Without the third feature, the evidence cannot settle whether the claim meets the criteria for mostly true (all three features) or mixed (two of three).

Cite this claim

Scott Alexander, “MNX lets people sell futures representing AI company stocks, bet on AI company revenues, and trade on targets such as the Epoch Capabilities Index.” (said 19 October 2026). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_081b849183f6, method 0.1.0+8bea457b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_081b849183f6

Claims without a verdict

Is a verdict here wrong, or do you speak for Scott Alexander? Reply on the claim's own page, with the form at its foot (how replies work). Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts and scores are made.