Show HN: The Probability Times (opens in new tab)

(theprobabilitytimes.com)

20 pointsNeroVanbierv1y ago19 comments

Hey HN! The idea for this started when I came across the election forecast of FiveThirthyEight [1]. They show a 1000 different possible election outcomes - each one possible.

In this newspaper homepage, I try to turn these simulations into reality by feeding AI with as much detailed information about a simulation as I can (e.g. voting results per state). See source code here [2].

The whole process is explained in more depth in my blog post: https://nerology.substack.com/p/how-i-made-the-probability-t...

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/

[2] https://gitlab.com/NeroVanbiervliet/the-probability-times/-/...

19 comments

MBaert1y ago

Jokes aside, I feel like this is how journalist work. They need to have news ready for both outcomes

carloslagoa1y ago

Yeah! I see this in soccer all the time --- interesting indeed. I wonder if they need to pick several cases (a tight win for team A, for team B, a draw, an embarrassing loss of A, for B, ...)

righthand1y ago

An anxiety spiker website.

rexpop1y ago

> Donald Trump Concedes...

Hm, maybe the prompt is too tightly constrained.

There is historical precedent for Donald Trump refusing to concede a presidential race, as seen in the 2020 election when he did not formally concede to Joe Biden and instead launched numerous legal challenges, citing unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.

But I concede that no such outcome is represented in the FiveThirtyEight dataset.

NeroVanbiervOP1y ago

Indeed, I’m just piping FiveThirthyEight > facts > LLM. And what the LLM makes of that is what you’re seeing, I tried to brief it as dry as possible in the prompt!

netsharc1y ago

I was going to point out this flaw too...

Also, Tuesday is election Day, why would a paper with that date already have the results; it won't. In 2020 the final count result came several days after the election day, although by that point Biden had enough EC votes.

A more interesting "predict the future" site would be one that can see the mood of the angry side of the electorate (e.g. based on social media) and predict terroristic acts big and small.

As an article I read a while ago and happen to agree with, the country is already in the next civil war, a lot of people are just in denial. One can deem it a cold civil war.

danielmarkbruce1y ago

Hilarious. Can be applied to sporting events...

carloslagoa1y ago

woah, super cool concept... what made you choose this 'future path(s)' and would you've done any others?

martyz1y ago

Love the concept - though in the versions where Trump loses, you should probably say 'Trump says system is rigged, or election stolen, etc.' -- we all know he'll never concede when he loses.

netsharc1y ago

A Trump-LLM would be simple and accurate enough.. "it's not my fault, it's that Tony Hinchliffe who messed it up for me!"

NeroVanbiervOP1y ago

I deliberately tried to keep the content neutral. The goal of the website is translating statistics to something tangible - not adding an extra sauce of assumptions to it!

intermerda1y ago

You can be politically neutral or factually neutral - not both. Seems like you chose the former.

2 more replies

janalsncm1y ago

Interesting concept, but some of the pictures are a bit weird. There’s one with Biden and Harris in a practically romantic embrace.

foobarchu1y ago

I was given one of Kamala interviewing Kamala surrounded by a crowd of smiling clone men.

Edit: I got another that's definitely supposed to be people lined up at a polling station, but they're all oriented towards the building so it looks more like a mass indecency crime

NeroVanbiervOP1y ago

This was one of the hard parts of making this. I think I discarded about 70% of all generated images, and I was aware that the remaining 30% was still borderline sometimes.

I my blogpost, I have a few examples of the discarded ones, including one of Harris and Obama in a similar romantic vibe: https://nerology.substack.com/p/how-i-made-the-probability-t...

I think at some point in the prompt I literally said that they were not romantically involved.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

19 comments

MBaert1y ago

Jokes aside, I feel like this is how journalist work. They need to have news ready for both outcomes

carloslagoa1y ago

Yeah! I see this in soccer all the time --- interesting indeed. I wonder if they need to pick several cases (a tight win for team A, for team B, a draw, an embarrassing loss of A, for B, ...)

righthand1y ago

An anxiety spiker website.

rexpop1y ago

> Donald Trump Concedes...

Hm, maybe the prompt is too tightly constrained.

But I concede that no such outcome is represented in the FiveThirtyEight dataset.

NeroVanbiervOP1y ago

Indeed, I’m just piping FiveThirthyEight > facts > LLM. And what the LLM makes of that is what you’re seeing, I tried to brief it as dry as possible in the prompt!

netsharc1y ago

I was going to point out this flaw too...

A more interesting "predict the future" site would be one that can see the mood of the angry side of the electorate (e.g. based on social media) and predict terroristic acts big and small.

As an article I read a while ago and happen to agree with, the country is already in the next civil war, a lot of people are just in denial. One can deem it a cold civil war.

danielmarkbruce1y ago

Hilarious. Can be applied to sporting events...

carloslagoa1y ago

woah, super cool concept... what made you choose this 'future path(s)' and would you've done any others?

martyz1y ago

Love the concept - though in the versions where Trump loses, you should probably say 'Trump says system is rigged, or election stolen, etc.' -- we all know he'll never concede when he loses.

netsharc1y ago

A Trump-LLM would be simple and accurate enough.. "it's not my fault, it's that Tony Hinchliffe who messed it up for me!"

NeroVanbiervOP1y ago

I deliberately tried to keep the content neutral. The goal of the website is translating statistics to something tangible - not adding an extra sauce of assumptions to it!

intermerda1y ago

You can be politically neutral or factually neutral - not both. Seems like you chose the former.

2 more replies

janalsncm1y ago

Interesting concept, but some of the pictures are a bit weird. There’s one with Biden and Harris in a practically romantic embrace.

foobarchu1y ago

I was given one of Kamala interviewing Kamala surrounded by a crowd of smiling clone men.

Edit: I got another that's definitely supposed to be people lined up at a polling station, but they're all oriented towards the building so it looks more like a mass indecency crime

NeroVanbiervOP1y ago

This was one of the hard parts of making this. I think I discarded about 70% of all generated images, and I was aware that the remaining 30% was still borderline sometimes.

I my blogpost, I have a few examples of the discarded ones, including one of Harris and Obama in a similar romantic vibe: https://nerology.substack.com/p/how-i-made-the-probability-t...

I think at some point in the prompt I literally said that they were not romantically involved.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse