Duruo/forecastbench-single_question huggingface dataset:
Question: By 2100, will the human population decrease by at least 10% during any period of 5 years?
Background: *You can now see an excellent visualization of global catastrophic risks estimates produced in the Ragnarök series [here](https://possibleworldstree.com/).*

It’s dangerous to be alive and risks are everywhere. But not all risks are created equally. Those that are especially large in scope and severe in intensity are global catastrophic risks, which are risks that could inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale.
 
Until relatively recently, most global catastrophic risks were natural, such as the supervolcano episodes and asteroidal/cometary impacts that led to mass extinctions millions of years ago. Other natural risks might include a pandemic of naturally occurring disease, non-anthropogenic climate change, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and spontaneous decay of cosmic vacuum state. Humanity has survived these natural existential risks for hundreds of thousands of years; which suggests that it is not any of these that will do us in within the next hundred.

By contrast, through technological advances, our species is introducing entirely new kinds of risks, anthropogenic risks, which are man-made threats that have no track record of surviving. Our longevity as a species therefore offers no strong prior grounds for confident optimism. Examples of anthropogenic risks are nuclear war, advanced artificial intelligence, biotechnology and bioengineered organisms, human-made climate change and nanotechnology risks.

There are two complementary ways of estimating the chances of catastrophe. What we could call the direct way is to analyze the various specific failure-modes, assign them probabilities, which is what--at least partially-- the questions in the Ragnarök series are designed to do.

Secondly, there is the indirect way. [As Nick Bostrom has argued](https://nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html), there are theoretical constraints that can be brought to bear on the issue, based on some general features of the world in which we live. There is only small number of these, but they are important because they do not rely on making a lot of guesses about the details of future technological and social developments. For example, the so-called [Doomsday argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument), which purports to show that we have systematically underestimated the probability that humankind will go extinct relatively soon.

Moreover, the [Fermi Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox) tells us that it is not the case that life evolves on a significant fraction of Earth-like planets and proceeds to develop advanced technology. Hence, there must be (at least) one Great Filter – an evolutionary step that is extremely improbable – somewhere on the line between Earth-like planet and colonizing-in-detectable-ways civilization. If the [Great Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter) isn’t in our past, we must fear it in our (near) future.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will British Petroleum (BP) successfully drill a production well at the Kaskida oil field before July 2026?
Background: Kaskida is an offshore oil field located in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), first discovered [in 2006](https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/press-releases/bp-announces-significant-discovery-in-the-deepwater-gulf-of-mexi.html). With *c.* 3 billion barrels of oil it is one of the largest discovered. However, the Kaskida is an ultra-high pressure (UHP) and ultra-high temperature (UHT) oil field which makes exploiting the development challenging. 

UHP / UHT fields require blow-out preventers capable preventing the release of hydrocarbons into the ocean in the event of loss of well control (i.e., a "blow-out"). Indeed, UHP fields require highly complex and massive drillships which are both capable of reaching to the seabed extreme depths, as well as dealing with the pressures. Today, this technology exists:

- Oil & Gas equipment provider APL NOV has successfully developed and manufactured a ["20K" blow-out preventer (BOP)](https://www.nov.com/about/news/20k-bops-will-revolutionize-subsea-pressure-control), and

- Transocean has constructed an eighth-generation ultra-deepwater [drillship](https://www.deepwater.com//documents/RigSpecs/Deepwater%20Atlas.pdf) equipped with the aforementioned BOP.

Aside from technology, BP have a tenuous history in the GoM, perhaps most notably due to the infamous Deepwater Horizon [disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill) which resulted in the largest oil spill in history, and possibly the worst environmental disaster in history. The aftermath of Deepwater Horizon resulted in years of oil production stagnation in the GoM.

Javier Blas, for Bloomberg, summarises the challenges BP face in the development of Kaskida:

>BP, in particular, has a lot to prove. Its CEO may be excited about developing the Kaskida oilfield, but environmentalists, climate activists and left-leaning US lawmakers are unlikely to be enthusiastic about the prospect of the British oil major drilling a complex and challenging well in the Gulf of Mexico of all places. Everyone deserves a second chance, but US federal regulators must keep a close eye on the future of Kaskida and all other new Paleogene oil fields. BP should focus on convincing everyone that it’s up to the task, rather than simply trumpeting the riches that await beneath the bottom of the sea.

-----------------------

Will BP successfully drill a production well at the Kaskida oil field before July 2026?
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will the European Union meet its 2030 targets under the Paris Climate Treaty?
Background: Although the United States has announced intentions to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, 194 countries are still part of [the agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement), including the European Union, [the world's #3 carbon dioxide emitter.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

Under the agreement, each country sets its own emission reduction goals. The EU's goal was to reduce emissions by 40% below 1990 levels. If achieved, by 2030 the EU will emit around [3.4-3.9 gigatons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases per year](http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu.html), whereas today the region accounts for [3.46 gigatons per year, or nearly ten percent of the global total](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions). Emissions have been in decline since 1990. Current projections estimate that the EU goals represent [a slowdown in the region's trend of emission reduction](http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu.html) and that the slowdown is not be enough to limit global temperature rise to only 1.5 or even 2 degrees C.

[Other goals](https://ec.europa.eu/clima/citizens/eu_en) of the EU's by 2030:

- At least 27% of total energy consumption from renewable energy

- At least 27% increase in energy efficiency
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will more than 34 countries have committed to a stringent anti-solar-geoengineering pact before 2026?
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will a functional Alcubierre drive-like FTL device be demonstrated before 2100?
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will SpaceX land people on Mars before 2030?
Background: [SpaceX](http://www.spacex.com) recently released a detailed plan ([transcription and slides here](http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-speech-transcript-2016-9/#-52)) to send people to Mars using an "Interplanetary Transport System" based on heavily reusable launch boosters, tanker-assisted refueling in low-Earth orbit, and a futuristic interplanetary spaceship. The ship is to traverse deep space and land intact on Mars after a high-speed retro-assisted atmospheric entry. The system will rely on in-situ fuel generation on Mars for return journeys, and it is envisioned that destinations across the Solar System may be within its reach.

The timeline has not been set in stone, but Elon Musk [has noted](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/10/Elon-musk-provides-new-details-on-his-mind-blowing-mission-to-mars/) that if SpaceX "gets lucky and things go according to plan", a manned flight could launch in the 2024 window with a landing on Mars in 2025. Subsequent launch windows, which are dictated by the Earth-Mars synodic period, occur at a roughly 2-year cadence. 

There have been [numerous proposals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars) over the years for landing people on Mars. Perhaps the first one that was both concrete and marginally credible was Wernher von Braun's *Marsprojekt* of the late 1940s and early 1950s. For the past six decades, trips to Mars have tended to lie 20-30 years in the future. The SpaceX plan is particularly notable for aggressively compressing the timeline.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will more than 50% of US adults own a personal augmented reality device by 2050?
Background: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary [defines augmented reality (AR) as](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/augmented%20reality)

>an enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device (such as a smartphone camera)

Some expect AR devices to be much more prevalent in the future. Neuroscientist and fiction author Erik Hoel wrote the following about augmented reality in the year 2050 in a [blog post published August 25, 2021](https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/futurists-have-their-heads-in-the)

>By 2050 pretty much everyone will be wearing smart glasses for augmented reality, and eventually these glasses will replace a lot of phones (no one will carry a wallet in 2050).

According to a PEW survey, [85% of US adults said they owned a smartphone in 2021](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/).
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will the majority of leading cosmologists in 2030 agree that the evidence points to an accelerating universe?
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will online poker be dead on January 1, 2031?
Background: In 2019, [Facebook and CMU beat pros at 6-max Texas Holdem using the equivalent of $150 of computer time](https://ai.facebook.com/blog/pluribus-first-ai-to-beat-pros-in-6-player-poker/)

>Pluribus achieves this result through several innovations on Libratus, the AI that beat human pros in two-player no-limit Hold’em in 2017, as well as other algorithms and code developed in Tuomas Sandholm’s Carnegie Mellon University research lab. In particular, Pluribus incorporates a new online search algorithm that can efficiently evaluate its options by searching just a few moves ahead rather than only to the end of the game. Pluribus also uses new, faster self-play algorithms for games with hidden information. Combined, these advances made it possible to train Pluribus using very little processing power and memory — the equivalent of less than $150 worth of cloud computing resources. This efficiency stands in stark contrast to other recent AI milestone projects, which required the equivalent of millions of dollars’ worth of computing resources to train.

In 2020, [Facebook and CMU published ReBel, a more general AI for games.](https://ai.facebook.com/blog/rebel-a-general-game-playing-ai-bot-that-excels-at-poker-and-more/)

In 2019, [Morgan Stanley downgraded the long term outlook for online poker because of the potential for bots:](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-12/superhuman-ai-bots-pose-a-threat-to-online-poker-firms-ms-says)

>“The (re)emergence of superhuman poker bots in the online ecosystem now appears to be a matter of when, not if,” analyst Ed Young wrote in a note.

According to https://www.pokerscout.com/, as of December 2020 there are over 10 real money poker sites that have had >1000 cash players online during the last 24 hours.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will one of the first AGI claim to be conscious?
Background: [Consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness) is a concept hard to define. Wikipedia states that consciousness at its simplest is "awareness or sentience of internal or external existence". And that despite centuries of analyses, definitions, explanations and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial, being "at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives".

This question will not attempt to define consciousness or solve the so called [hard problem of consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness). 

Instead this question simply asks will one of the first AGI claim to be conscious?
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will RoboCup announce that robots have beaten professional human soccer players before 2050?
Background: The [RoboCup](http://www.robocup.org/objective) (short for Robot World Cup Initiative) was launched in the mid-1990s as a "grand challenge" in robotics. The RoboCup Federation hosts annual RoboCup competitions where robotic teams compete in soccer matches. In [a paper published in 1995](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.49.7511) the creators of the RoboCup describe the initiative as 

>an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where [a] wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined.

The stated ultimate goal of the RoboCup Initiative is:

> By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup. 

As a part of this process, annual RoboCup games are played; see [here](http://www.robocup.org/events/upcoming_events) for upcoming events.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will it be legal to pay taxes in the US using bitcoin before 2030?
Background: *Related Question on Metaculus:*

* [Will anyone be convicted in the US for the possession of Bitcoin before 2060?](https://www.metaculus.com/questions/7209/conviction-in-us-for-bitcoin-ownership-2060/)

----
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will FreeTON cryptocurrency project be successful?
Background: Telegram Open Network was a cryptocurrency project that would allow to make transactions within Telegram messenger. It was [cancelled](https://www.interactivecrypto.com/telegram-cancels-telegram-open-network-and-grams-project) after a lawsuit initiated by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the USA.

After that, a group of developers [forked](https://cryptopotato.com/free-ton-forks-to-decentralized-independence-in-telegram-token-sales-departure/) the project under name [FreeTON](https://freeton.org/) to develop it independently from Telegram messenger.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will the US unemployment rate reach 10% before 2031?
Background: The Metaculus community has projected the seasonally adjusted annual average U-3 (Unemployed and looking for work) unemployment rate for the US at around 3% through 2027. 

-	[What will be the seasonally adjusted annual average U-3 unemployment rate in the United States in the following year?]( https://www.metaculus.com/questions/14064/us-annual-average-u-3-unemployment-rate/) by RyanBeck

Presumably, if some new data emerged indicating a shock to the labor markets, the Metaculus community would reassess their forecasts and possibly increase the percentage. 

What percentage point might be considered a shock to the labor market? In December, 2018, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jgalt asked if the US unemployment rate would reach 10%. This question resolved “Yes” at 14.7% in April 2020.

-	[Will the US unemployment rate reach 10% before 2023?](https://www.metaculus.com/questions/1643/will-the-us-unemployment-rate-reach-10-before-2023/) by Jgalt

Using Jgalt’s criteria, a US unemployment rate of 10% or higher could be viewed as evidence of a shock to the labor markets.

This question asks if the US will reach 10% unemployment (seasonally adjusted) at any point before January 1st 2031.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will X declare bankruptcy in 2024?
Background: Since Elon Musk concluded his purchase of Twitter on [October 22nd, 2023](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk), the company (now rebranded to "X") has had its fair share of scandals, such as the [removal](https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/20/23690820/twitter-verified-blue-checkmark-legacy-elon-musk) of blue checkmarks from legacy users and [ad boycotts](https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23981928/elon-musk-ad-boycott-go-fuck-yourself-destroy-x) that have significantly hurt the company financially.

Furthermore, in November 2022, Musk [told](https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-tells-twitter-staff-bankruptcy-isnt-out-question-platformer-2022-11-10/) his employees that bankruptcy is not out of the question. Still, Musk has [mentioned](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934216/x-twitter-bank-elon-musk-2024) ambitious plans for turning X into more than just a social media app; he also aims for it to be a financial app, with updates expected in 2024. Musk [remarked](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934216/x-twitter-bank-elon-musk-2024), "You won’t need a bank account... it would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year."
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will England build at least 1.5 million new homes over the current parliamentary term?
Background: The UK Labour Party set a target of "1.5 million new homes 
over the next parliament" in its [manifesto](https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf#page=36) prior to its victory in the 2024 United Kingdom general election.

Housing policy in the UK (which includes house building) is a [devolved matter](https://fullfact.org/economy/house-building-levels-PMQs/) in the UK, meaning the national governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland set their own policies separately from the government in Westminster. The Labour manifesto for 2024 has the sentence "Labour will get Britain 
building again, creating jobs across England, with 1.5 million new homes 
over the next parliament.", which suggests the 1.5 million goal is for England only.

For more information please see: [The new Labour government plans to build 1.5 million homes – here’s what’s needed to make it happen](https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/the-new-labour-government-plans-to-build-15-million-homes--heres-whats-needed-to-make-it-happen/)
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will Any Major AI Company Commit to an AI Windfall Clause by 2025?
Background: In 2020, the Future of Life Institute published a report entitled ["The Windfall Clause: Distributing the Benefits of AI for the Common Good."](https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Windfall-Clause-Report.pdf) (They also wrote [an abridged version](https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.11595) to be published in the [Proceedings of AIES](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3375627.3375842). Also, fun aside: Metaculus' own [@Anthony](https://www.metaculus.com/accounts/profile/8/) got a shout-out in the acknowledgements.) Essentially, they expanded on an idea from Bostrom's Superintelligence that a firm working on transformational AI technology could limit global inequality as a result of their breakthrough by pre-committing to keep only a fraction of the fabulous profits, and distribute the rest.

Though there are numerous obstacles barring the path to making this plan a reality, the FLI research lowers many of these bars, including investigating the legal apparatus for enacting such an agreement and envisioning some of the logistical means by which a windfall might be distributed. What really remains is buy-in. If this plan will work, it will work because the companies positioned to develop windfall AI technologies signed on to a Windfall agreement in advance.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will the population of the United States be higher than the People's Republic of China at any point before 2200?
Background: In 2023, the population of the United States and the People's Republic of China (China) stood at 0.33 billion and 1.41 billion respectively. However, China's population [fell by roughly 2 million in 2023](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-population-drops-2nd-year-raises-long-term-growth-concerns-2024-01-17/), indicating a faster decline in population than previously projected. [New population projections](https://theconversation.com/chinas-population-is-about-to-shrink-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-famine-struck-60-years-ago-heres-what-it-means-for-the-world-176377) estimate that by 2100, China's population [could fall by as much as 70%](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/) to less than 500 million people in the worst case scenario.

Comparatively massive population declines are not limited to China; South Korea has seen repeated downward adjustments to population, a recent estimate being a [70% decline by 2100](https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/south-koreas-demographic-trends-continue-to-decline/).

In contrast, the population of the U.S. has [continued to rise](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/popchange-data-text.html), though at a slower pace compared to previous decades. The official census estimates that [the U.S. population will peak at 370 million in 2080](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/population-projections.html).
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will the S&P 500 rise or fall more than 15% in a single day during the 2020s?
Background: The [S&P 500](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_500) is often used as a benchmark for the performance of large-cap companies in the United States. On October 19, 1987 (so-called [Black Monday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987))), the S&P fell 20.47%, the largest movement in its history, which has yet to be surpassed. Generally, when the stock market makes a sudden move, it indicates that there has been some economic shock, such as when the S&P 500 [fell 11.98%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_stock_market_crash) during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0
Question: Will Valve release a game before 2030 with 3 in the Title?
Background: The video game company valve has multiple franchises all ending with their number 2 game and it is well known joke in the gaming community that valve will never create a game with the number 3 in the title.

Franchises that already are at the number 2: "Half Life 2", "Portal 2",
"Left 4 Dead 2", "Team Fortress 2" and "Dota 2".
Source: metaculus
Resolved outcome (1 = yes, 0 = no): 0