cmeinel

Carolyn Meinel
About:

I have quit nearly all questions and resigned from serving as a Pro Forecaster. I'm now devoting my efforts to the research side. For example, what are the characteristics of a question being useful and forecastable, yet nontrivial? How might we most efficiently detect forecasting rationales written by a generative AI? (Hint: Shannon entropy, as suggested by @jrl) Past research, "What do forecasting rationales reveal about thinking patterns of top geopolitical forecasters?" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169207021001473, see also a webinar, https://youtu.be/iXuA2sE0Uzs. Serving as president of BestWorld, https://bestworld.net

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2025 Season Stats

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Relative Brier Score

29

Forecasts

23

Upvotes
Forecasting Activity
Forecasting Calendar
 
Past Week Past Month Past Year This Season All Time
Forecasts 1 7 597 29 3747
Comments 1 9 269 36 2102
Questions Forecasted 1 3 59 8 213
Upvotes on Comments By This User 1 4 270 23 1730
 Definitions
New Prediction
On 31 May 2025, will Nvidia be the world’s most valuable company by market cap?
cmeinel made their 27th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
2% (-1%)
Yes
98% (+1%)
No
Why do you think you're right?

Influenced by the excellent analysis by @TBall here https://www.randforecastinginitiative.org/comments/166755

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Why might you be wrong?

Too low: Murphy's Law. Example: what if Trump were to decide to be "nice" to NVIDIA and allow it to sell its top end chips to China?

Too high: Economic chaos thanks to Trump could destroy any remaining chance to hit #1. Specifically, purchases of NVIDA high end chips appear to be fueled by venture funds, and from what I'm seeing on Pitchbook, that kind of money is drying up. I'm thinking of going to zero by May 3 unless some sort of amazing deal, like nobody's ever heard of before, enables NVIDIA to sell any and all of its chips to Chinese entitites.

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New Prediction
Will North Korea conduct a nuclear test within the next six months?
cmeinel made their 10th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
Forecast Window
0% (0%)
Yes
Apr 19, 2025 to Oct 19, 2025
100% (0%)
No
Apr 19, 2025 to Oct 19, 2025
Why do you think you're right?

I find no evidence of North Korea preparing a nuclear test site. The old one was destroyed by its last test.

 For current news and analysis of North Korea's nuclear war activities, , see https://www.38north.org/2025/04/north-koreas-nuclear-cognitive-warfare-strategy/

Quick summary: Since North Korea demonstrated its mastery of the hydrogen bomb, in the process wrecking its test site, it has been focusing on integration (or creating the impression of integrating) nuclear weapons into its delivery systems. So far, it hasn't yet tested a missile capable of ICBM ranges, as shown by their test trajectories, all highly lofted and hence with reentry velocities incompatible with warhead survival.  Clearly they are looking at defense plus cowing South Korea and perhaps worse.

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Why might you be wrong?

North Korea might have found a way to prepare for a nuclear test that has evaded outsider observers so far. Thanks to commercial satellite data, amateurs can probably, but not certainly, detect such things.

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cmeinel made a comment:

OK, here you go, some sources on the unusability of Mt. Mantap for additional tests:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2143171/north-koreas-nuclear-test-site-has-collapsed-and-may-be-why-kim-jong-un
 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43894394
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aar7230

The last of these is a beautifully detailed analysis with lots of graphics.

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New Prediction
Will the People's Liberation Army invade, blockade, or attack the main island of Taiwan in the next six months?
cmeinel made their 12th forecast (view all):
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Probability
Answer
Forecast Window
1% (0%)
Yes
Apr 19, 2025 to Oct 19, 2025
99% (0%)
No
Apr 19, 2025 to Oct 19, 2025
Why do you think you're right?

On the one hand, quoting Napoleon Bonaparte/Sun Tsu, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself." By  invading Taiwan, Xi would risk forcing Trump to fire his current crop of advisors and get competent people on board in order to respond to that crisis. So my assumption is that Xi will avoid giving Trump any pretext to put aside the trade war for a real war.

Instead, Xi so far has been eager to meet or outdo Trump at trade war.

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Why might you be wrong?

Xi's economy has been sputtering. Starting a hot war over Taiwan might distract his oligarch class from their economic woes. Every dictator depends upon a pyramid of those who benefit from his personal rule. (I say "his" because overwhemingly it is men who become dictators.)

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Plataea479 made a comment:

I believe bots will be a useful adjunct  to forecasting by humans but never a total substitute for human analysis. I keep trying to download data from NATO Views from Uppsala without success. Cheers and Happy Easter. Trump Is putty in the hands of real autocrats like Xi Ping and Putin and they know exactly how to play him.

Trump promised Ukraine war would be over in 24 hours if elected. Putin understood any cease fire would be for 24 hours.

Putin will continue to play Trump so will Netanyahu 

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New Prediction
On 31 May 2025, will Nvidia be the world’s most valuable company by market cap?
cmeinel made their 26th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
3% (-4%)
Yes
97% (+4%)
No
Why do you think you're right?

Dateline 4-16-2025 The new US limit on Nvidia’s exports to China will cost the company $5.5 billion.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-15/nvidia-says-us-has-imposed-new-china-restrictions-on-h20-chips

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Why might you be wrong?

Apple might get hit harder as who knows what Trump will tariff next and how much.

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New Prediction
On 31 May 2025, will Nvidia be the world’s most valuable company by market cap?
cmeinel made their 25th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
7% (+2%)
Yes
93% (-2%)
No
Why do you think you're right?

Increasing slightly given stock market volatility and the Trump factor. 


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Why might you be wrong?

It is hard to make forecasts in a chaotic environment.

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New Prediction
Will the People's Liberation Army invade, blockade, or attack the main island of Taiwan in the next six months?
cmeinel made their 11th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
cmeinel quit this question on Apr 14, 2025 10:46AM
Probability
Answer
Forecast Window
1% (+1%)
Yes
Apr 5, 2025 to Oct 5, 2025
99% (-1%)
No
Apr 5, 2025 to Oct 5, 2025
Why do you think you're right?

“Never interfere with an enemy while he's in the process of destroying himself” -- Napolean Bonaparte

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Why might you be wrong?

Cromwell's law of statistics.

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New Badge
cmeinel earned a new badge:

Active Forecaster

New Prediction
Will North Korea conduct a nuclear test within the next six months?
cmeinel made their 9th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
Forecast Window
0% (-1%)
Yes
Apr 4, 2025 to Oct 4, 2025
100% (+1%)
No
Apr 4, 2025 to Oct 4, 2025
Why do you think you're right?

 Still no sign of preparations for a test at https://www.38north.org/ The old site isn't usable and is damaged beyond repair. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2143171/north-koreas-nuclear-test-site-has-collapsed-and-may-be-why-kim-jong-un

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Why might you be wrong?

A new site might be built fast enough.

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New Prediction
On 31 May 2025, will Nvidia be the world’s most valuable company by market cap?
cmeinel made their 24th forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
5% (0%)
Yes
95% (0%)
No
Why do you think you're right?

The gap between Apple and NVIDIA today is $407B. This compares with @geoffodlum reporting $239B March 16 here https://www.randforecastinginitiative.org/comments/161803

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Why might you be wrong?

I'm tempted to game this one by going to zero, but Murphy's Law is deterring me.

Part of the decline could be attributed by news of GenAI competitors seeking alternatives to NVIDIA:

https://research.aimultiple.com/ai-chip-makers/

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/nvidia-competitors

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New Prediction
On 31 May 2025, will Nvidia be the world’s most valuable company by market cap?
cmeinel made their 23rd forecast (view all):
Compare to me
Probability
Answer
5% (-8%)
Yes
95% (+8%)
No
Why do you think you're right?

There are new competitors who do great on the GenAI benchmarks without using the top of the line Nvidia chips, indeed not many chips of any sort.

https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2025/01/deepseek-r1-vs-openai-o1/

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-looking-into-whether-deepseek-used-restricted-ai-chips-source-says-2025-01-31/

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Why might you be wrong?

These cheap newcomers look great, but are they? Indeed, even the biggest users of Nvidia chips have questionable performances. 

Several aspects here:

(1) So what if they only look great by being designed, thanks to their training data, to do well on the benchmark tests? Consumers only care about results. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/chatbots-benchmark-tests/681929/

(2) If the cheap new GenAIs are making consumers happy, who cares what is under the hood?

(3) What if the use case collapses for users of high end GenAIs?

(4) Chaos among the owners of the high end GenAIs and their beloved Donald Trump could easily crash the US and even world economy.  Elon Musk, looking at you!

(5) Yet, the economy and markets for Nvidia chips could remain elevated and ever surge before the end of May.

(6) If markets were rational, how come our Pro Forecasters aren't all billionaires? Are there  any billionaire Pro Focasters?


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