Predictions for 2022
Forecasting on the pandemic, science, tech, politics, and economics
One of my hobbies is forecasting - making specific predictions about the likelihood of future events. And the best way to get better at making predictions is to regularly make them and then see how they turned out. So, each year I make some predictions about the next year, and score my predictions for last year, with inspiration from Scott Alexander, Vox's Future Perfect, Matt Yglesias, and others.
I've recently been doing a lot more forecasting on Metaculus throughout the year, but I still like to do these annual predictions as a convenient Schelling point to compare what I'm thinking with many other well-known predictors.
My predictions range from some that are done very quickly without any specific research (just based on prior knowledge or gut instinct), to others that make heavy use of prediction markets, expert analysis, and my own spreadsheeting. (Maybe for next year I'll try to separate those out and see just how much that impacts my accuracy.)
By the way, if you're wondering what good these predictions about the world are to me personally - most are just for fun and interest, but many are important inputs to decisions in my life - examples include when my office will fully reopen, what charities are the best ones for me to donate to, and whether I should plan international travel next year. And of course I also use the same skills to make predictions about my own life specifically.
So, here is my first set of predictions about 2022. I'll start with a few of my own, as well as a long list of predictions from Vox's Future Perfect, Matt Yglesias, and The Economist's Global Trends 2022.
After the year ends, I’ll look back at these predictions and score how well I did.
Covid
In US, pandemic fades away to pre-Delta case levels or lower, with occasional flare-ups: 50%
Restaurant and retail spending continues to be basically normal for most of the year: 90%
Will evaluate based on https://www.bea.gov/recovery/estimates-from-payment-card-transactions
US covid cases below Delta peak by end of March: 60%
I think the Omicron surge will be very steep, which I think means there's a good chance it'll also come back down quickly. But we've seen both surges of both shapes in different countries and different times, and I don't really have an explanation of why yet.
Google "returns to office" at some point in 2022 (I'll redefine this as US employees working in the office more than from home): 80%
I personally work from the office more often than not by summer 2022: 70%
US authorizes another Covid vaccine dose for general public (adults, not just seniors): 75%
US authorizes booster specifically targeted at Omicron or new variant: 70%
Omicron less lethal than Delta: 85%
Omicron already >50% of cases in US as of 12/31/21: 90%
CDC Nowcast thinks this has already happened, but they just had a massive revision to previous nowcasts, and it takes a while for the sequencing data to come in
Omicron is >50% of cases in US at end of year 2022: 30%
I think the two main other possibilities are that a new variant will take over after Omicron, or that Omicron might not take over Delta depending on how much of its advantage is vaccine escape vs intrinsic transmissibility.
Omicron R0 estimate: 6.5 (5.0 - 8.0)
Note R0 is "transmission in a theoretical population where no one is vaccinated and no one has already had the disease." So this is largely about how much of Omicron's advantage over Delta is intrinsic transmissibility vs vaccine escape.
Lowest US unemployment rate for any month in 2022: 3.7% (3.2% - 4.1%)
Here I'm writing predictions for continuous quantities (as opposed to binary yes/no predictions) as median, 25th percentile, and 75th percentile. So I expect the result to be outside the range 50% of the time. For the purposes of converting these to simple binary scoring, I'll probably treat them as three binary predictions, X < q1 with probability 25%, X < median with probability 50%, X < q3 with probability 75%; and then weight them by 1/3 since they’re correlated and about the same thing.
Tech
Full-self-driving robo-taxis available to what percent of the US population? 1% (0.5% - 3%)
Currently Waymo is publicly available in Phoenix (~0.5% of US population)
SpaceX Starship reaches orbit: 88%
Cybersecurity incident of size comparable to Colonial Pipeline, log4shell: 75%
Subjective but I'll evaluate based on Google Trends interest or something like that
Vox Future Perfect’s predictions
Vox’s 2022 predictions did the hard work of coming up with the questions and detailed research and explanation, and I get to read it and decide if I think their prediction is off.
Many of my predictions here are "buy/sell/hold" style predictions where I take the expert prediction in a domain I know next to nothing about, and decide whether to tweak it up or down a bit based on my general forecasting experience.
US
Democrats will lose their majorities in the US House and Senate: 60% (their prediction: 95%)
Inflation in the US will average under 3 percent:
30%45% (their prediction: 80%)Wow, that's quite a difference from Metaculus. They are asking slightly different questions (PCE vs CPI), but close (as far as I can tell). Future Perfect cites some very convincing expert forecasts, and this Metaculus question has hundreds of predictions, so I notice I'm confused. My prediction is based on implied inflation from TIPS.
(Corrected this on 1/2/22 to match what I had put on Metaculus: “US inflation: 3.3% (1.9% - 5.2%)”)
Unemployment in the US will fall below 4 percent by November: 70% (their prediction: 80%)
This is another fun one, directly counter to Matt Yglesias's prediction. I'm going to bet on continued recovery and job growth.
The Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade: 70% (their prediction: 65%)
Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court: 50% (their prediction: 55%)
World
I have very little to comment on these world politics topics, I'm just guessing, and occasionally averaging the difference between Vox and Yglesias and other predictors.
Emmanuel Macron will be reelected as president of France: 65% (their prediction: 65%)
Jair Bolsonaro will be reelected as president of Brazil: 40% (their prediction: 55%)
Bongbong Marcos will be elected as president of the Philippines: 65% (their prediction: 55%)
Rebels will NOT capture the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa: 65% (their prediction: 55%)
China will not reopen its borders in the first half of 2022: 80% (their prediction: 80%)
Chinese GDP will continue to grow for the first three quarters of the year: 95% (their prediction: 95%)
Covid-19
20 percent of US children between 6 months and 5 years old will have received at least one Covid vaccine by year’s end: 70% (their prediction: 65%)
The WHO will designate another variant of concern by year’s end: 80% (their prediction: 75%)
One thing that makes me unsure how to predict this is that we had no VOC designations until Dec 2020, and then in the next year we had 5!
12 billion shots will be given out against Covid-19 globally by November 2022: 92% (their prediction: 80%)
Metaculus is much more confident about this, and looking at the current rates I agree
... but at least one country will have less than 10 percent of people vaccinated with two shots by November 2022: 75% (their prediction: 70%)
The current data doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Science and technology
A psychedelic drug will be decriminalized or legalized in at least one new US state: 50% (their prediction: 75%)
Metaculus is much less confident about this (although it's very new and few predictions so far)
AI will discover a new drug — or an old drug fit for new purposes — that’s promising enough for clinical trials: 85% (their prediction: 85%)
US government will not renew the ban on funding gain-of-function research: 70% (their prediction: 60%)
I'm predicting higher mostly because if it hasn't already happened, why in 2022?
Environment
The Biden administration will set the social cost of carbon at $100 per ton or more: 75% (their prediction: 70%)
2022 will be warmer than 2021: 60% (their prediction: 80%)
I love using base rates like Vox is, but temperature forecasts put it at just about a tie with 2021, supposedly (I can barely read some of these charts)
Culture
Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast will win Best Picture: 40% (their prediction: 55%)
If the betting sites consensus is 25%, I can understand going a little higher, but 55%?
Norway will win the most medals at the 2022 Winter Olympics: 50% (their prediction: 60%)
It's worth noting that I'm "cheating" relative to them by reading their forecast and then getting to factor that into my own. But on the other hand, I know next to nothing about most of these topics and they're researching and writing these predictions as part of their job.
Matt Yglesias’s predictions
Matt Yglesias's 2022 predictions. I feel even more out of my depth on most of these. I left out some questions I especially had no opinion on, and would have just defaulted to his predictions.
US politics
Democrats lose both houses of Congress: 60% (their prediction: 90%)
Same as above, I'm going with the models and prediction markets
Democrats lose at least two Senate seats: 50% (their prediction: 80%)
Democrats lose fewer than six Senate seats: 90% (their prediction: 80%)
Nancy Pelosi announces retirement plans: 70% (their prediction: 70%)
Stephen Breyer does not retire: 50% (their prediction: 60%)
Some version of Build Back Better passes: 60% (their prediction: 60%)
Joe Biden is still president: 95% (their prediction: 90%)
World politics
No military conflict between the PRC and Taiwan: 91% (their prediction: 90%)
New U.S. sanctions on Russia: 75% (their prediction: 70%)
Saudi Arabia and Israel establish diplomatic relations: 55% (their prediction: 60%)
Emmanuel Macron re-elected: 65% (their prediction: 60%)
Lula elected president of Brazil: 60% (their prediction: 60%)
Russia does not invade Ukraine: 65% (their prediction: 60%)
Covid
Fewer U.S. Covid deaths in 2022 than in 2021: 65% (their prediction: 80%)
China officially abandons Covid Zero: 75% (their prediction: 70%)
Fewer U.S. Covid-19 deaths in 2022 than in 2020: 60% (their prediction: 80%)
Additional booster shots of mRNA vaccines authorized for seniors: 85% (their prediction: 80%)
Could be either 4th dose of existing vaccines like Israel is starting to approve, or an Omicron-specific vaccine.
Economics
November 2022 year-on-year CPI growth is below 6%: 80% (their prediction: 70%)
November 2022 year-on-year CPI growth is above 4%: 55% (their prediction: 70%)
The unemployment rate stays between 4 and 5%: 30% (their prediction: 70%)
The Economist's Global Trends 2022
This is from a Metaculus tournament with questions from the Economist.
Bitcoin price (USD): 60k (30k - 100k)
US Real GDP annual growth rate: 3.2% (2.0% - 4.2%)
US inflation: 3.3% (1.9% - 5.2%)
Inferred from TIPS
Total electric vehicle sales in US: 660 (575k - 750k)
650k sold in 2021. Was growing fast except for the big supply chain shortage that started in the summer.
Cumulative US Covid deaths at end of 2022: 1.17m (1.1m - 1.3m)
Cumulative Covid vaccine doses worldwide: 16b (14.5b - 17.5b)
Cumulative Covid vaccine doses in US: 733m (650m - 835m)
US/Canada Total Box Office Gross in 2022: 6.8b (5.2b - 8.7b)
I think we'll get halfway back to pre-pandemic. Historical data
Global Commercial Flights on Jun 30, 2022: 103k (88k - 118k)
US Rejoins Iran Deal in 2022 : 25%
Israel-Palestine Peace Talks in 2022 : 15%
Hungary EU Exit Referendum in 2022 : 4%