How Can Good Generalist Judgment Be Differentiated From Forecasting - EA Forum
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Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
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Relevant to AI safety governance discussions about how to evaluate judgment quality in researchers and decision-makers, particularly when designing hiring or advising processes that rely on forecasting proxies for broader competence.
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Summary
This EA Forum discussion examines the operational distinction between 'good judgment' and 'forecasting skill,' exploring whether forecasting is a subset or distinct capability. Respondents argue that good judgment encompasses broader competencies—direction-setting, agenda-setting, creative thinking, systems thinking—while forecasting covers only narrow probabilistic prediction. The thread highlights challenges in evaluating and selecting for holistic decision-making quality.
Key Points
- •Forecasting skill (probabilistic prediction) is likely a narrow subset of broader good judgment, not equivalent to it.
- •Good judgment includes direction-setting, agenda-setting, creative thinking, and systems thinking beyond mere prediction.
- •Organizations like the Good Judgment Project conflate terms, making operational distinction difficult in practice.
- •Decision-making under uncertainty requires judgment components that standard forecasting metrics cannot capture.
- •Identifying and selecting for holistic judgment quality remains an open methodological challenge for organizations.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Good Judgment (Forecasting) | Organization | 50.0 |
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# How can good generalist judgment be differentiated from skill at forecasting? By Linch Published: 2020-08-21 In EA, there appears to be an interest in "[good judgment](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xMRpu4nAeGeAXy9ns/good-judgement-and-its-components)," sometimes also called "[rationality](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xMRpu4nAeGeAXy9ns/good-judgement-and-its-components?commentId=2YcRhq6pM5ijX2SBm#comments)." There is also interest in [forecasting](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/rationality). **My question is, what are the concrete, operationalized differences between skill at forecasting vs having good judgment?** I'm not asking this question facetiously. For example, the parent company/organization of [Superforecasting](https://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock/dp/0804136718) brands itself as the "[Good Judgment Project](https://goodjudgment.com/)." But at the same time, when I think about "being good at forecasting" and "having good judgment," I often think of many different qualities. So how can we cleanly separate the two?
c80d3e92cbd4778a | Stable ID: sid_rEe5Ylf2bn