Prediction markets-friend Barney Pell is involved in the next Google, “PowerSet”.
Chris F. Masse November 6th, 2006
PowerSet will blow away Google, the buzz goes, because this brand-new search engine has mastered the natural language search. Here’s Barney Pell’s account of the blogosphere’s comments on the unveiling of PowerSet’s business plan.
My Question: Do you see any kind of connection between natural language search and prediction markets?
Addendum (November 7): In a 2005 blog post, comes the explanation on how the prediction market virus disseminated into Barney Pell’s body and mind. One usual suspect (pun intended, see below) is involved:
I have been interested in this idea ever Robin Hanson (the founder of the field of prediction markets) and I were summer students in the AI Lab at NASA Ames Research Center, both working under Peter Cheeseman. This was right around the time when Robin wrote his first papers on the topic: “Idea Futures: An idea whose time has come?”, and “Could gambling save science?”. In order to match the work its NASA funding, Robin created a demonstration of how a set of Mars Rovers could place bets on the presence of scientific interest at different locations on Mars. The result would be the emergence of consensus beliefs that could be more accurate than the knowledge of any individual.
I also remember the time Robin hosted [a] Murder Mystery evening with a prediction market as an added twist. Like a normal such party, actors would read out each scene. But in Robin’s version, the audience members would then place bets on the identity of the murderer by buying options. Based on the market dynamics, a ticket marked “This ticket is worth $1 if Professor Plum was the murderer” might start out having equal value as the other suspect tickets (so that you could be the whole set of them for $1), but then the price would fluctuate as [events] unfolded until the prices ultimately went to $0 for all but the actual murderer. It was really fun, an improvement on the original version.
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- Comments(6)
That’s Barney, not Barnet. Or is that the French spelling?
Oops!…
Another connection: PowerSet was in residence at CommerceNet toward the end of my stint there. (According to their contact page, they are still there.) Someone at CommerceNet likes both Prediction Markets and PowerSet, whether they see any particular connection or not.
Interesting, thanks Chris Hibbert.
As for a connection between ‘natural language search’ and ‘prediction markets’, there is none, probably, but asking the question makes us think hard, generally, about the impact of high tech. Somebody will find a mutant idea, one day.
Prediction Markets Timeline
http://www.midasoracle.org/200.....-timeline/
[...] Hanson was the first to set up and run a bunch of imagination-based prediction markets. See the Murder Mystery Evening described by Barney Pell —circa June 8, [...]