WET BLANKET OR BUBBLE BUSTER? — Charles Plott (a big-shot economist) condemns all the hype surrounding the prediction markets and the wisdom of crowds.

Chris F. Masse May 13th, 2008

California Institute of Technology economist Charles Plott:

What you’re doing is collecting bits and pieces of information and aggregating it so we can watch it and understand what people know. People picked this up and called it the ‘wisdom of crowds’ and other things, but a lot of that is just hype.

It’s a too summary judgment… but there is a good portion of truth in it.

As for James Surowiecki, he has all my respect.

Tags: Charles Plott, collective intelligence, event derivative markets, event derivatives, hype, prediction markets, wisdom of crowds

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One Response to “WET BLANKET OR BUBBLE BUSTER? — Charles Plott (a big-shot economist) condemns all the hype surrounding the prediction markets and the wisdom of crowds.”

# ABC 20/20 — A good (but servile) explainer on the wisdom of crowds and the prediction markets | Midas Oracle .ORGon 16 May 2008 at 3:51 am

[...] markets or earthquake prediction markets could serve a societal purpose. That is complete bullshit. That is pure hype. As I said yesterday, an analyst should check whether a given prediction market is really able of [...]