Forecasting the Future of Animals: $3,400 in prizes
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Every year, the animal advocacy movement makes consequential bets. Funders decide which organizations to back. Campaigners decide whether to push a corporation on cage-free eggs or broiler welfare. Researchers decide which emerging issue, octopus farming, in-ovo sexing, the welfare of animals in an AI-shaped world, deserves attention now rather than later. These decisions benefit from greater clarity on what the next few years will bring. Today we're launching the [**Animal Futures Tournament**](https://www.metaculus.com/tournament/33016/) to put better evidence behind those decisions.  ## Where the questions came from Questions for this tournament were developed alongside the individuals and organizations who can use the answers. Metaculus worked with [Sentient Futures](https://www.sentientfutures.ai/) and [<u>The Unjournal</u>](https://www.unjournal.org/) to crowdsource questions from across the animal advocacy community. The Unjournal gathered candidate questions from people in strategic positions and put each one through a simple test: could a forecast on this question actually change a decision? Questions that made the cut were from categories like: * **Corporate commitments.** Will companies follow through on their cage-free and broiler welfare pledges? How fast will in-ovo sexing replace the culling of male chicks in the EU and US? * **Alternative proteins.** Will new cultivated meat products clear regulatory approval? How large a share of fish will come from aquaculture by 2040? * **Emerging frontiers.** Will Nueva Pescanova's octopus farm win approval? How will animal welfare show up, or fail to, in the behavior of frontier AI systems? * **The movement's resources.** How much funding will key organizations raise, and how will meat production and consumption trends move in major markets? ## Why a forecasting tournament Good strategy depends on good expectations about the future. A forecasting tournament turns expectations into explicit, scored probabilities from a community of forecasters competing to be accurate. The result is a public signal that funders, researchers, and advocacy organizations can integrate into their decision-making process. ## How it works The tournament has a **\$3,400 prize pool**, funded via [<u>Manifund</u>](https://manifund.org/projects/metaculus-first-animal-focused-forecasting-tournament). Rankings are based on **peer score**, which rewards both accuracy and how many questions you forecast, so it pays to predict broadly and to update as new information comes in. A second batch of questions will open in the coming weeks, so follow the tournament to be notified when that happens. [<u>**Join the Animal Futures Tournament →**</u>](https://www.metaculus.com/tournament/33016/) *** *The Animal Futures Tournament was made possible by Aditi Basu, who originated and organized the project and by our partners at Unjournal. The prize pool was funded via Manifund.*