Spring 2015 Seminar Series

DATE: 2/12/15
LOCATION: E51-395
TIME: 4:15pm
Reception immediately following

SPEAKER:
Drazen Prelec

TITLE
Opinion Aggregation When Truth is Unverifiable: The Meta-prediction Approach

ABSTRACT
The current moment may be described as one where crowd-sourcing technologies are rapidly outpacing theory: The internet has made it possible to collect thousands of judgments (reviews, ratings, forecasts) from dispersed individuals, but principles for distilling the “wisdom of the crowd” still draw largely on statistical ideas that would have been familiar to Galton. I will describe an approach based on a new definition of the best answer to a non-verifiable question, as the one given by those who would be “least surprised” by the true answer if that answer were revealed. Since this definition is of interest only when the true answer is unknown, algorithmic implementation is nontrivial. I will present a solution that relies on a secondary input, namely, respondents’ predictions of how other people will respond, and then review some applications.