The Hard Fork podcast is relesaed approx. weekly and covers some of the biggest news in tech. I think this is an interesting proxy for how important AI-related news will be in the coming year.
Boring resolution details:
So far, their title format (as it appears in apple podcasts) has been (Top story #1) + (Top story #2) + (Top story #3), which correspond to main segments on the show.
To determine what counts as a main segment, I'll defer to the top story headlines included in the title. If the title format changes significantly, but the "2-3 main segment" format clearly stays, I'll try to resolve according to the content of the main segments. If both formats change significantly, I'll probably resolve N/A.
"An AI-focused main segment" is a bit hard to specify, so I will need to take some liberties in determining what counts. In general, I mean a segment about the release of new AI models or products, drama at a major AI lab, a piece of AI-focused legislation, the importance of the semiconductor industry in the context of AI development, etc.
If the sgement is about something such as a new CEO being appointed to Tesla, I'd consider that not AI-related. If the segment is about a major Tesla recall due to failures in their AI self-driving system, I would consider that AI-related. If the segment is about a lawsuit against Facebook over general user data collection, I'd consider it not AI-related. If the segment is about a lawsuit against Facebook over the use of user data in training a language model, I would consider it AI-related.
Here's a few examples from last year's main segments of things that would count vs. not count:
"Google's Next Top Model" - this is a story about Gemini, it counts.
"Casey v. Kevin on US v. Google + Walter Isaacson on Two Years With Elon Musk" - this is about google's "default search" lawsuit and Elon Musk's biography, so it does not count. If the second segment covered a biography of e.g. Geoffrey Hinton, it would count.
"HatGPT" - despite have an AI wordplay name, this is basically just a general random/grab-bag segment, so I wouldn't count it. This is true even if some, or the majority, of the topics they cover happen to be AI-related. However, if they explicitly choose to do + acknowledge doing an AI-focused "HatGPT" segment, it would count.
Any "special" episodes that don't adhere to the usual format, such as one-off "emergency episodes" (as was recorded following Sam Altman's firing) or the re-upload of Ezra Klein's interview with Chris Miller, don't count for the purposes of this market.
1,000🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ19 | |
| 2 | Ṁ19 | |
| 3 | Ṁ6 | |
| 4 | Ṁ5 | |
| 5 | Ṁ5 |
This one is tough to resolve. The most recent episode appears, to me, to qualify for resolving this "YES."
True, AI was a contributing factor to shakeups in the media landscape, and the hosts talk about it. In fact, in the intro, Casey describes it as being "caused by AI." But in their actual discussion, and in the description of the episode on nytimes.com, it seems like they attribute this change to lots of factors, including the internet at large, market dynamics, and changes in social media business models. This may then be AI-related, but I'm inclined to not count this as not AI-focused, meaning this will resolve YES. It's a tricky one though, and there is an argument for it counting as AI-focused. The best I can do is shrug and point at the resolution description: "An AI-focused main segment is a bit hard to specify, so I will need to take some liberties in determining what counts."
By my counting the last such episodes were Sept 15, Sept 8 and August 4. So this seems common enough.
@FlorisvanDoorn Yeah I think it's more likely than not as well, although I think only 4-6 total episodes qualified in all of 2023 (would have to re-listen to determine exactly), and I think 2024 might make 2023 look cute in terms of AI development (just as 2023 did 2022). This market seems pretty close to me — maybe I'd put it at 80%. Will be interesting to see it drop as the months go on though, unless some qualifying episode gets released right out the gate.