INFER is a collective intelligence program advancing the forecasting capability of the U.S. Government
We use crowdsourced forecasting to generate more precise signals on future high risk, high impact science and technology issues and world events to aid government policy and decision makers.
FOCUS AREAS
Early warning about events impacting national security
Risk assessment and evaluation
Resource allocation and prioritization
Welcome to INFER’s public forecasting community
New to INFER?
Join NowExplore INFER’s public forecasting community
Engage with a diverse, global community of fellow forecasters and hone your own critical thinking and reasoning skills.
TRENDING QUESTIONS |
Forecasts in Past Week |
Crowd Forecast |
|---|---|---|
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52 |
3% |
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50 |
55% |
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48 |
46% |
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Will Vladimir Putin cease to be the president of the Russian Federation before 1 May 2024? |
46 |
4% |
|
39 |
0% |
FEATURED OPPORTUNITY
COSMIC BAZAAR Challenge
Ends Dec 31, 2023
INFER has partnered with the official UK Government crowdsourced forecasting program “COSMIC BAZAAR” to publish forecast questions of interest about innovations in quantum computing, Web 3.0, and synthetic biology.
Sign up to join the challengeExperience the benefits of being a forecaster
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Improve critical reasoning and judgment
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Access forecasting training
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Feedback on individual performance
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Exclusive tournaments and rewards
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Virtual events with subject matter experts
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Network with other forecasters
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Be at the vanguard of forecasting efforts in government
“Forecasting forces me to assess my own biases going into an issue. I’m also constantly surprised by the ways the other forecasters think about factors going into their forecasts -- it is so easy to get trapped in our epistemic bubbles and crowd forecasting helps reorient our thinking.”
— Fiona Kastel, INFER forecaster
“I learn more than I ever thought I would about some of the most important issues facing the U.S., while also influencing decisions on the same topics.”
— Anthony Cordetti, INFER forecaster
Crowdsourced forecasting is a process that enables a large group of people to combine their individual forecasts into a “crowd” or “consensus” forecast that often generates a more accurate forecast than individual experts.
INFER gets requests from policymakers about what they need to understand about the future. We then agree on a question that best represents what they want to know. From there, our team goes through a process of “decomposing” that broad question into the individual questions you see on INFER.
Learn more about our decomposition process.
INFER creates regular reports of forecasting outputs for policymakers to use in their analysis and decision-making process. These come in the form of quarterly updates, or alerts about notable movement in the consensus forecasts.
See examples of these reports.
Watch this brief video to see how INFER’s crowd insights serve as a “warning signal” to bolster national security and intelligence.
INFER is run by the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) at the University of Maryland, a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) funded by the Department of Defense, in partnership with Cultivate Labs.
INFER supports U.S. Government policymakers in elements of the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, State Department, and other Departments throughout government.
By leveraging the power of the crowd, the goal of INFER is to provide early warning and a more diverse perspective about the future to bolster the national security and intelligence of the U.S. and its allies.
If you are a policymaker interested in working with INFER on a strategic question or issue, or have a community of people who would be interested in making forecasts, contact us at
[email protected].
“INFER is the future of American forecasting”
University of Pennsylvania Perry World House, A Roadmap to Implementing Probabilistic Forecasting Methods
