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Philip Tetlock - The Decision Lab
webthedecisionlab.com·thedecisionlab.com/thinkers/political-science/philip-tetlock
Tetlock's superforecasting research is relevant to AI safety for its insights on epistemic calibration, prediction accuracy, and institutional decision-making — skills central to evaluating AI risks and policy responses.
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Summary
Overview of Philip Tetlock's career and research on human prediction accuracy, demonstrating that most expert forecasts are no better than chance, while identifying a subset of 'superforecasters' who consistently outperform experts through probabilistic thinking, diverse information synthesis, and willingness to update beliefs. His Good Judgment Project quantified the attributes enabling accurate forecasting.
Key Points
- •Most expert predictions are statistically no better than random chance, undermining confidence in conventional expert-based decision-making.
- •Tetlock identified 'superforecasters' — individuals who outperform even intelligence analysts with access to classified data.
- •Key superforecaster traits include probabilistic thinking, drawing from diverse sources, teamwork, and willingness to acknowledge and correct mistakes.
- •The Good Judgment Project (co-founded with Barbara Mellers) empirically studied forecasting attributes at scale.
- •Findings have broad implications for policy, governance, and any domain requiring reliable predictions about future outcomes.
Cited by 2 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Good Judgment (Forecasting) | Organization | 50.0 |
| Philip Tetlock | Person | 73.0 |
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Philip Tetlock - The Decision Lab Philip Tetlock
Thinker Intro Intro Innovative Ideas Historical Biography References References Gaining insight into foresight
Intro
We make predictions about the possible outcomes of certain actions in order to inform our decision-making. This seems like an effective process until you realize that most of us are unable to accurately foresee the outcomes of our choices. It was psychologist Philip Tetlock who demonstrated that, generally, the accuracy of our predictions is no better than chance, which means that flipping a coin is just as good as our best guess. Tetlock also realized that certain people are able to make predictions far more accurately than the general population. He dubbed these people “superforecasters”.
Tetlock is a psychology professor and researcher who is fascinated by decision-making processes and the attributes required for good judgment. His career has had a major impact on decision-making processes worldwide, as his discovery of superforecasters has enabled him to uncover the attributes and methodologies necessary for making accurate predictions. Through consultations and workshops, Tetlock and his colleagues have been working to improve decision-making by promoting the qualities necessary to accurately foresee the outcomes of certain decisions.
“ In one of history’s great ironies, scientists today know vastly more than their colleagues a century ago, and possess vastly more data-crunching power, but they are much less confident in the prospects for perfect predictability.
– Philip Tetlock in Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
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See how we work About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His w
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