Sweden's Crowd-Forecasting Platform 'Glimt' Helps Ukraine Make Wartime Predictions

alternative_right shares a report from France 24: [Sweden's] latest contribution to the war effort is Glimt, an innovative project launched by the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) earlier this year. Glimt is an open platform that relies on the theory of 'crowd forecasting': a method of making predictions based on surveying a large and diverse group of people and taking an average. 'Glimt' is a Swedish word for 'a glimpse' or 'a sudden insight.' The theory posits that the average of all collected predictions produces correct results with 'uncanny accuracy,' according to the Glimt website. Such 'collective intelligence' is used today for everything from election results to extreme weather events, Glimt said.

Group forecasting allows for a broad collection of information while avoiding the cognitive bias that often characterizes intelligence services. Each forecaster collects and analyses the available information differently to reach the most probable scenario and can add a short comment to explain their reasoning. The platform also encourages discussion between members so they can compare arguments and alter their positions. Available in Swedish, French and English, the platform currently has 20,000 registered users; each question attracts an average of 500 forecasters. Their predictions are later sent to statistical algorithms that cross-reference data, particularly the relevance of the answers they provided. The most reliable users will have a stronger influence on the results; this reinforces the reliability of collective intelligence. 'We used this method and research, and we suggested to the Ukrainians that it could improve their understanding of the world and its evolution,' said Ivar Ekman, an analyst for the Swedish Defence Research Agency and program director for Glimt. 'If you have a large group of people, you can achieve great accuracy in assessing future events. Research has shown that professional analysts don't necessarily have a better capacity in this domain than other people.'

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