Metaculus Introduces Multiple Choice Questions

By christian @ 2023-12-20T19:00 (+8)

This is a linkpost to https://www.metaculus.com/questions/20740/introducing-multiple-choice-questions/

Today Metaculus launched multiple choice questions. Multiple choice questions are designed for topics where exactly one option out of many will occur, like the winner of a presidential election.

For this question type, the sum of the probabilities across all options must equal 100% to be a valid forecast. This will enhance the accuracy of both individual and aggregate forecasts. A convenient 'Auto-sum' button streamlines forecasting by ensuring probabilities add up to 100%.

Start predicting now or read on to learn how multiple choice questions improve the forecasting experience.

Forecasting on multiple choice questions

For multiple choice questions like:

—exactly one outcome will occur, so the probabilities over all options must sum to 100%.

To get started, predict the likelihood of each option. Select ‘Auto-sum’ to ensure your probabilities add up to 100%.

The current sum of probabilities appears below the options so you can see how much of the probability is left to distribute. If your options add up 98.5%, for example, then Auto-sum will proportionally distribute the 1.5% of remaining probability across the options.

The Forecast Timeline functions the same as for question groups: Hover over the plot to see your forecasts alongside the Community Predictions at that time. Use the tick boxes to hide or reveal forecast options. When there are more than six options, use the Others dropdown to select them.

How do multiple choice questions differ from question groups?

Previously, Metaculus has used question groups to shed light on topics like:

• Who will be elected US President in 2024?
• Which type of research group will first develop transformative AI?

In the future, we plan to use multiple choice questions for these kinds of questions. Multiple choice questions ensure logically coherent predictions that sum to 100%, so forecasts will be more accurate.

And unlike question groups, multiple choice questions only score your forecast on the option that resolves Yes. Learn more about multiple choice question scoring here.

Get started

Find multiple choice questions in the question feed by selecting Filter and then Multiple Choice.

For now, only Metaculus admins can create multiple choice questions, but we want to hear from the forecasting community: Are there multiple choice questions you want to see on Metaculus? We hope you share them and any other thoughts or feedback.