imlaggingsobad t1_j3oy627 wrote on January 10, 2023 at 1:48 AM

Reply to comment by AsheyDS in "Community" Prediction for General A.I continues to drop. by 420BigDawg_

it's not just a prediction, it's a crowdsourced prediction. Statistically, crowdsourcing does better at converging to the actual answer.

Cult_of_Chad t1_j3p0fgx wrote on January 10, 2023 at 2:03 AM

>Statistically, crowdsourcing does better at converging to the actual answer.

This should be the top reply.

AsheyDS t1_j3pb1x8 wrote on January 10, 2023 at 3:17 AM

But what is the crowd? Is this based on a sampling of all types of people, or enthusiasts being enthusiastic?

footurist t1_j3qdd01 wrote on January 10, 2023 at 10:10 AM

Yes, this if the key question. If I'd build such a website I'd try to implement some ways to categorize the crowd. "30% expert, 50% enthusiast, 20% hobbyist" or something like that... Of course getting any kind of certainty on that would be hard, but it turns out if you actually ask nicely and with a time of seriosity most people just tell the truth, so maybe even not.

will-succ-4-guac t1_j3rme50 wrote on January 10, 2023 at 4:35 PM

> Statistically, crowdsourcing does better at converging to the actual answer.

Statistician here, and this is a good example of a relatively meaningless statistic, to be honest. Crowdsourcing statistically tends to be more accurate than just asking one person, in the average case, for what should be mathematically obvious reasons.

But the “average case” isn’t applicable to literally every situation. I would posit that when we start to talk about areas of expertise that require a PhD to even begin to be taken seriously for your opinion, crowdsourcing from unverified users starts to become a whole lot more biased.