Public Opinion Pool
Using the “Wisdom-of-the-Crowd” to Estimate Mass Killing Risk in Real Time
An opinion pool is a structured process for collecting and combining opinions (in our case, forecasts) from a group (pool) of people. The larger and more diverse the set of participants, the more accurate we expect the forecasts will be. The Early Warning Project’s Public Opinion Pool provides real-time risk estimates to complement the annual Statistical Risk Assessment. In addition, participants’ discussion threads and comments provide insight into how forecasters are interpreting developments in particular countries and incorporating them into their forecasts.
We encourage everyone to participate by making forecasts in our challenges on Good Judgment Open.
Note: We have paused our public opinion pool while we analyze the data collected to date. Information about any future EWP opinion pools will be posted on this page.
About the Good Judgment Project
In 2011, the Good Judgment Project (GJP) was selected by the US intelligence community to compete in an unprecedented government-funded political forecasting tournament. GJP emerged as the tournament's winner, outperforming in accuracy against professional intelligence analysts with access to classified data. Now, GJP's winning approach to forecasting is available for all on Good Judgment Open. This public forecasting system aggregates probabilistic forecasts submitted by individuals into a “wisdom-of-the-crowd” forecast, which tends to be more accurate than any given individual forecast.
Photo above: Darfur, Sudan. USHMM/Brian Steidle.