[ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists?

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Robin D Hanson
...
>...If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see
how that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over
others...Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu

Robin, there is a field of professional forecasters a bit like what you are
describing, but we have no access to their work because it is classified
secret.  Even more than big corporations, the military has great interest in
forecasting, since it has such long product cycles.  We think of
battleships, but it applies to airplanes as well.  Example, the modern
trash-hauler the C-130 airlifter, had the General Operating Requirement
issued in 1951, and is still in production as it approaches its 60th
anniversary since entry into service.  The USAF top brass are arguing over
whether to continue production of the plane into the 2020s, as a new
airlifter GOR has still not been published.

The military has detailed plans (that actually work) going out 25 years.
They also peer down the road a century, but that one is anyone's guess.
They talk about AI, singularity, all the stuff we discuss here.  I wouldn't
be surprised a bit if some of the graduates of the Singularity University
end up working for DARPA.

The military has a specific branch of service with a specialized calculus
designed to deal with an astonishing array of variables in the field of
futurism.  When guys retire from this discipline, they are highly prized by
industry for that ability.  Like a related discipline, feedback control
systems, their mathematical models have ways of dealing with disruptive
technologies such as the internet and cell phones, in a way similar to how
control system aviation technology deals with unexpected large inputs such
as an concussive explosion near the aircraft.

I recommend you search for a retiree from the forecasting discipline who is
willing to share what those guys do.  That might be hard to find.  I was
friends with one for years before I had any idea he was a professional
forecaster.  I knew he had one of the spooky clearances, but I assumed
incorrectly what he was using it for.  I knew he was an interesting guy who
found me because of my posts on ExI, but he never posted here.  They watch
and listen but don't talk.

spike