INFER forecasters and experts weigh in on questions related to the Israel-Hamas war, including the chance of a ceasefire in Gaza, the likelihood of Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel, of Iran and Israel going to war, and more. 

INFER has launched a new strategic topic to support a U.S. Government stakeholder who wants to understand the future outlook of Iran’s influence on violent non-state actors.

Three years after the U.S. pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, Iran began ignoring the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear program. Now, using our issue decomposition process, INFER is assessing the likelihood that Iran will produce a nuclear weapon.

A recap of a special forecasting event INFER hosted about the future of AI, attended by select INFER forecasters and nearly two dozen forecasting enthusiasts who work at Google, joining in a personal capacity.

INFER aims to strengthen the connection between science and policymaking when it comes to assessing risks by providing a new source of information that can serve as a complement to scientific assessments.

Does the JCPOA—or something like it—have a future? Forecasters at INFER have been tackling a series of questions related to the deal and to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. They’ve forecasted the likelihood of Iran leaving the JCPOA, as well as of other participants enacting “snapback” sanctions.

In this post, we explore how you can use an AI tool like ChatGPT to gain a quick understanding of a complex forecast topic as well as improve the logical support behind your rationale.

Are we entering an era of even more rampant misinformation with the rise of AI? That was the focus of a recent talk supported by INFER as part of the Phoenix Challenge, a seminar series for senior officials in governments, think tanks and other policy experts. See how the INFER crowd forecasts on this topic compared with the experts.

All spring, the world waited for Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russia to begin. Now that it is under way, policymakers around the world are closely monitoring its prospects. Forecasters at INFER are tracking the conflict, too, and predicting the amount of territory each side will hold by the end of the year. 

The next generation of OpenAI’s technology isn't likely to arrive this year, according to INFER forecasters as well as analysts tracking AI. In the meantime, though, OpenAI likely has other priorities.

Last fall, INFER introduced a new Team Lead opportunity for forecasters who were interested in getting others in their community involved in crowd forecasting. Team Leads were tasked with recruiting and leading a team of forecasters in a six-month forecasting tournament that ended in April.

Our forecasters have been asking for a mobile app – and we are excited to share that it is now available for INFER. You will now be able to submit forecasts on critical questions to support INFER’s government stakeholders directly from our native app on a phone or tablet. 

Inflation has been surging in Egypt since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and it shows little sign of abating, according to both experts and INFER forecasters. In fact, it’s probable that Egypt’s inflation problem will get worse.

The world will need to ramp up its use of biofuels in order to decarbonize transportation, according to the International Energy Agency.  But, will that happen? What will contribute to growth in this sector? See what forecasters on INFER are saying about this topic across a range of questions that speak to both biofuels’ short- and long-term potential. 

When you drop in ranking due to a single inaccurate forecast (as happens to everyone sooner or later!), what can you learn from these moments?

Last fall, the U.S. announced new export controls preventing the sale of certain advanced chips to China—along with the software and machinery required to make them. This is intended to maximize U.S. technological advantage over China. But will the controls work, and will U.S. allies join the effort? 

INFER is pleased to announce a collaboration with Cosmic Bazaar, the crowdsourced forecasting program run by the UK’s Professional Head of Intelligence Assessment (PHIA).

See who made the Best of 2022 and help us recognize their outstanding contributions.

Crowd forecasting allows you to get signals about events before they happen. We're making it even easier to be alerted to important signals by introducing crowd forecast change alerts – which notify you of sudden shifts in the consensus forecast.

As the inaugural season of INFER comes to an end, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of our accomplishments as a community, our lessons learned, and also give you a glimpse of new initiatives we’re excited to share with you in 2023. 

INFER is pleased to announce that the Pro Forecaster Program will continue into the 2023 season. Up to 100 Pro Forecasters (“Pros”) are being selected for the program, which includes monthly payment for dedicated forecasting and exclusive training and events.

INFER launched new questions asking about advancements in quantum computing as part of the Global AI Race topic. This post explains why we chose those questions and what the answers suggest about the future direction of AI.

In our first blog series on cognitive biases, we dive into confirmation bias: what is it, and how can we avoid it in our forecasts?

Making your first forecast? This guide will provide steps and example prompts that you can use to approach any forecast question for the first time.