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Forecast Dissemination Mini-Market 3 of 3: Earthquake Risk

$312raised
$125valuation
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Pitch deck for my projects found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yjCCO-2-ClpKiLTNyijbf0XdHbMqJfCq/view?usp=sharing

Project description

I’ve been working in forecasting for a few years now, and I’ve seen lots of great forecasts (and forecasters) that aren’t able to reach the people who would benefit most from them. I’m launching this project to evaluate the impact of publicly disseminating relevant forecasts through targeted ads, while also supporting the development of standards for impact reporting that can be used for future markets.

This project is one component of three-project collection that is designed to leverage impact markets in order to explicitly prioritize between three different sets of forecasts to promote - the more funding a given project receives, the more reach ads connected with that project will have.

Investments in this specific project will go towards promoting forecasts of earthquake risk, then evaluating whether these forecasts caused people to make preparations.

Once this project is complete, the results and estimated impact will be published using the standardized format developed in “Standardized Tools for Impact Market Reporting”.

What is your track record on similar projects?

I’m a professional forecaster working for Amazon (I also won the ACX 2022 forecasting contest). I’ve previously done work in survey research and causal inference, with a focus on evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions.

I previously worked in litigation, where I conducted similar research projects for expert testimony in labor and accounting-related lawsuits.

My recent professional focus has been on automating the use of forecasts in business decisionmaking, and this project is a part of my personal interest in “aligning” institutions and market outcomes with human values.

How will you spend your funding?

I’ll be using the funds received in this project to target online ads towards individuals in a specific geographic area at risk of earthquakes, directing them towards forecast-related resources designed to inform them about their personal risk. This will be followed up with a survey designed to evaluate the effectiveness of these ads.

I’m personally putting $250 towards each of these mini-markets ($750 total) to provide a baseline ad purchase. Additional funding will be used to broaden the target audience for ads, which I expect will increase impact in a roughly linear way.

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RyanKupyn avatar

Ryan Kupyn

over 1 year ago

Project Update:

My report on this project

Detailed Questions
1. How much money have you spent so far? Have you gotten more funding from other sources? Do you need more funding?

In total, I spent about $320 on this project, including the $250 received from the original grantors. This money was spent purchasing advertising as described in the complete project report, but some was also spent evaluating approaches to quantifying this project's impact. I provided all the other funding used in this project,

2. How is the project going? (a few paragraphs)

This project is complete! You can see my results and thoughts in detail at the link: above, but I've adopted the content here as well:

This project is part of a set of three related projects with two goals:

1. Testing the use of targeted advertising to disseminate forecasts to audiences when and where they are most useful.

2. Using the impact market funding process to identify and fund forecasts that would be useful to disseminate more widely.

This particular project focused on disseminating forecasts of future earthquake risk to residents of coastal Humboldt County, California, which was struck by an earthquake in December 2022.

The ads I launched generated 9,398 impressions, and reached 5,304 distinct accounts. The audience selected for these ads was 20-to-60-year-olds living in north coastal California, in a 20 mile radius circle centered on Eureka, CA. 145 of the accounts reached through this ad went on to visit forecasts of their future earthquake risk provided by the state of California, which also provided information for people interested in mitigating their risk.

Unfortunately, attempts to quantify the impact of this project through surveys didn't work well, so I had to use an alternative approach for my impact calculation.

Impact Calculation

The value of this project is dependent on whether the being informed about forecasts of future earthquake risk makes people more likely to take actions to mitigate those risks. Based on my personal experience with other Californians, I think that while such a relationship exists, providing additional information about earthquake risk has only a minimal impact on individual preparedness for an earthquake. I put a rough value of approximately $5 per visit induced, for a total project value of $725.

3. How well has your project gone compared to where you expected it to be at this point? (Score from 1-10, 10 = Better than expected)

I would rate this project at around a 4-out-of-10. Mechanically, the project ran well, but I don't think the impact was worth the investment. I'd focus future resources on other projects rather than this one.

4. Are there any remaining ways you need help, besides more funding?

Not at the moment - I consider this project to be complete for now.

5. Any other thoughts or feedback?

Not on this project - though my feedback from other projects applies here as well.

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RyanKupyn avatar

Ryan Kupyn

almost 2 years ago

Hi folks!

I'm holding a 30-minute pitch call for my projects this Thursday at 5:00 pm Pacific time. This call will include more information on the work I plan to do and why I think it's important, as well as an opportunity for direct Q&A.

You can send any questions you'd like me to address to impact@ryankupyn.com (or ask them here of course).

Meeting link:

https://meet.google.com/rpv-yymq-pvj