Updates from BestWorld’s AI Botmaster Jeremy Lichtman of Oct. 11, 2024

What is the probability of the US Steel/Nippon Steel merger being officially announced before January 21, 2025?

Jeremy’s Multi-AI Oracle is forecasting 15%, steady from 15% yesterday. This contrasts with our staff forecasts, averaging 72.5%.

Carolyn suspects that the Multi-AI Oracle is placing too much weight on news reports that both US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris oppose the merger. By contrast, Brian and I are forecasting 66% and 70% respectively because Presidents of the US in theory can’t/shouldn’t overrule the process whereby this merger would be decided.

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Welcome to the Multi-AI Oracle.
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Question: What’s the probability of the US Steel/Nippon Steel merger being officially announced before January 21, 2025?
Obtaining outside newsfeed.
Summarizing outside newsfeed.

Querying Perplexity (AI predicts: 0.3 – confidence: 6)
Querying Claude (AI predicts: 0.15 – confidence: 5)
Querying Mistral (AI predicts: 0.25 – confidence: 6)
Querying Cohere (AI predicts: 0.1 – confidence: 7)
Querying OpenAI (AI predicts: 0.15 – confidence: 5)

Median from LLMs: 0.15 (15%)

Base rate: 0.15 (from OpenAI)
SD: 0.07
Confidence: 6
Conf Mode: Normal
Mellers: 0.04
Reverse Mellers: 0.3
Theory of Mind: 0.3 (What did the LLMs think other LLMs predicted?)
Beta Distribution: 0.45
Close Type: A (B = cautious # closer to 50%; A/C = closer to extremes)
# LLM responses: 5
Model value (not submitted): 0.15
We queried Perplexity, Claude, Mistral, Cohere, OpenAI.
A summary of what the responding AIs considered is as follows:

The proposed merger between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel is encountering substantial obstacles from significant opposition, mainly from the United Steelworkers union and various political figures, including President Joe Biden, who is concerned about national security implications and aims to block the merger. The extended review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) adds further regulatory complexity, making it less likely for the merger to be completed by the target date of January 21, 2025. These challenges, combined with the typical complexity and duration of international merger approvals, suggest a difficult path forward. However, the prediction might be wrong if political and regulatory opposition is resolved more swiftly than anticipated, either through addressing the concerns or unforeseen developments, such as under-the-table negotiations or changes in political pressure.
Runtime: 137 seconds.

Bestworldbot News

The newest version of bestworldbot now is making practice forecasts on the Q4 AI Forecasting Benchmark Competition. Click here to see its first four of them.

The Q3 AI Forecasting Benchmark Competition has concluded. Bestworldbot was #53 out of 55 competitors. A likely explanation for bestworldbot’s huge fall on the leaderboard from #17 on Sept. 10 is that we tried extremizing its forecasts. With most human forecasters, extremizing is usually effective. However, we now believe that extremizing made bestworldbot worse. Oh, well, that’s research, some things work, some don’t.

The Human Team

BestWorld’s staff of Brian LaBatte and Carolyn Meinel also now are forecasting the US Steel/Nippon Steel Merger. Their version has two sub-questions:

(1) Will the US Steel / Nippon Steel merger be approved by the White House before Jan. 21. 2025?” Brian’s latest forecast is 66%; Carolyn’s is 70%.

(2) If yes, when will US Steel investors relations announce the final outcome of the acquisition with Nippon Steel?
a. Before November 5, 2024
b. Between November 6 and December 31, 2024
c. January 1 to 20, 2024
d. After January 21, 2024

Brian’s latest forecasts are 2%, 50%, 28%, and 20%.

Carolyn’s are 0%, 20%, 20%, and 60%.

Below are their forecasting spreadsheets.