1. Marine Le Pen’s vote share in the second round of the 2027 French presidential election ↗

After her judgement was overturned, Marine Le Pen said she would be the presidential candidate for the Rassemblement National. Explore on Mantic ↗

• I observe that current polling consistently places her in a winning position against centrist opponents at 51% to 54%, supported by expansion into historically resistant retiree and executive demographics.

• I incorporate a significant fade factor because the ‘republican front’ consolidation typically triggers a late decline for the far-right, aligning with Polymarket’s lower implied win probability.

• Structural dissatisfaction remains a primary driver, as 84% of voters distrust political parties and economic anxiety persists among middle-class voters.

• I highlight critical risks including a pending Cour de Cassation ruling on her eligibility and potential campaign financing failures.

2. Marine Le Pen’s vote share in the second round of the presidential election conditional on her opponent ↗

Marine Le Pen’s score shifts depending on her opponent in the second round of the presidential election. Below are Philippe, Mélenchon and Attal. Explore on Mantic ↗

Le Pen v Mélenchon: Le Pen 55%

• The most critical factor in my thinking was the expected breakdown of the traditional “republican front”—the historical tendency for mainstream voters to unite against the far-right. In a contest against the far-left, my research suggests this defensive alliance would likely collapse.

• I found that many centrist and right-wing voters, who previously voted to block Le Pen, now view her opponent with equal or greater skepticism. In this specific pairing, these voters are much more likely to abstain or switch their support to Le Pen rather than back a far-left candidate.

Le Pen v Philippe: Le Pen 48%

• I relied heavily on polling from mid-2026, which shows Le Pen in a significantly stronger position than in previous election cycles, often leading her opponent in hypothetical matchups. This reflects a “rising floor” of support fueled by widespread political distrust, economic dissatisfaction, and the normalization of her party.

• Because Philippe is viewed as a relatively popular, stable centrist, I anticipated he would be more effective at attracting tactical votes from the left and center-right than other potential candidates.

Le Pen v Attal: Le Pen 50%

• I considered the “normalization” of the National Rally and a clear upward trajectory in Le Pen’s previous second-round performances. Current head-to-head polling shows her in a significantly stronger position than in previous cycles, fueled by high levels of political distrust and economic dissatisfaction.

• I adjusted for the historical “polling fade” observed in past French elections. I accounted for the likely reactivation of the “Republican Front”—the traditional mobilization of voters from the left and center-right to block the far-right in the final round.

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3. When the next US government shutdown begins ↗

Federal funding expires at the end of September, but with the midterms only weeks away neither party wants to own a shutdown. Is that enough to avoid it? Explore on Mantic ↗

• My median prediction for the next US government shutdown to begin is December 1, 2026.

• While federal funding is scheduled to expire at midnight on September 30, 2026, I anticipate a short-term bridge will be passed to avoid political backlash before the November midterm elections. However, the House-passed continuing resolution only extends through December 4, meaning the highest risk of a lapse occurs during the post-election lame duck session when partisan leverage increases.

• I identify the primary legislative deadlock as the demand for the SAVE America Act and disputes over defense supplemental funding. With only 11 overlapping session days remaining in September, there is insufficient time to resolve these fundamental policy differences permanently.

• This forecast is supported by the 119th Congress’s historical propensity for funding lapses, including a 43-day shutdown and a 76-day partial shutdown earlier in this session. The lack of 50 votes for a Senate GOP reconciliation fallback further limits the paths to averting a December closure.

4. The EU aggregate gas storage fill level on 1 November 2026 ↗

Europe went into the summer with tanks at a record-low 28% and the refill has been slow ever since, with the Hormuz disruption halving Middle Eastern LNG. Brussels has already cut its target to 80%, so where do the tanks actually land on 1 November? Explore on Mantic ↗

• I predict the most likely EU aggregate gas storage fill level on 1 November 2026 is 74.82%, with a 50% chance of falling between 71.62% and 78.12%.

• This projection is based on the current fill level of 55%, which is significantly behind the pace needed for traditional targets due to a record-low 28% starting level in April 2026. Supply disruptions from the Strait of Hormuz crisis have halved Middle Eastern LNG imports, and while Qatar began resuming shipments on 31 July 2026, infrastructure damage limits recovery speed.

• I find that deep market backwardation and high Asian demand for US LNG have removed commercial incentives for storage, leaving replenishment dependent on state mandates. Consequently, the European Commission has lowered its target to 80%, aligning with analyst forecasts from HSBC and Wood Mackenzie that cluster in the low-to-mid 70s.

• My analysis assumes that while Norwegian pipeline flows remain reliable, the required injection rate to hit 90% is unattainable under current scarcity premiums, where daily injection needs exceed historical peaks.

5. The composition of the Swedish government in office on 31 December 2026 ↗

Sweden's September election looks likely to hand the Social Democrats the largest bloc, but forming a government is a separate problem. Explore on Mantic ↗

• I predict a Social Democrat-led government will be in office by 31 December 2026 with a combined probability of 72%.

• Polling from June 2026 indicates a decisive lead for the center-left opposition at 55.2%, compared to 42.6% for the incumbent bloc, with the Social Democrats serving as the dominant power center at 33.9%.

• The governing coalition path to a majority is severely compromised as the Liberal Party polls at 1% to 2.5%, well below the 4% threshold, while 9.9% unemployment erodes voter support for Prime Minister Kristersson.

• Friction remains a 15% risk factor if Sweden Democrat demands for cabinet seats or Left Party ministerial aspirations extend negotiations past the year-end deadline.

1. When Anthropic IPOs

Last month, Anthropic confidentially submitted draft S-1 to the SEC, marking a major step towards an IPO.

• My median prediction for Anthropic becoming publicly traded is 16th November 2026.

• Following a confidential S-1 filing on 1st June 2026, the company is in an active execution phase, with lead underwriters Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs already conducting investor meetings.

• While the company is internally targeting an October 2026 debut, I have adjusted for likely slippage due to the administrative complexity of a trillion-dollar valuation and standard SEC review cycles.

• Financial readiness is high, supported by a revenue run-rate exceeding $47 billion and the recruitment of specialized investor relations leadership to manage the transition.

• The macro environment remains exceptionally favorable, characterized by record-high IPO underwriting volume in mid-2026 and strong investor demand for AI infrastructure.

2. The winner of the Brazilian presidential election

Flavio Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign against the incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will officially be launched on the 25th by the Liberal Party.

• I predict Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will win the 2026 Brazilian presidential election with 60% probability.

• Current polling confirms Lula’s consistent lead, with first-round support reaching up to 41.8% and runoff simulations showing him ahead of his main rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, by margins as wide as 12.5 percentage points.

• Economic tailwinds, including a multi-year low unemployment rate of 5.6% and peaked economic activity in early 2026, provide the incumbent a significant advantage despite a 46% disapproval rating and new U.S. trade tariffs.

• The opposition remains fragmented and weakened; Flávio Bolsonaro’s support among moderate right-wing voters recently plummeted from 74% to 54%, while alternative candidates like Ronaldo Caiado and Renan Santos continue to poll in the single digits or low teens.

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3. The total number of measles cases in the US in 2026

US 2026 measles cases have already surpassed the 2025 total of 2289, before the school year even begins, as vaccination rates keep sliding. How high will they get?

• My most likely prediction for confirmed measles cases in the United States for 2026 is 3,170, with a 50% chance of falling between 2,881 and 3,718.

• As of late July, the U.S. has already recorded 2,295 cases, surpassing the full-year 2025 total, with current transmission averaging 35 to 40 new cases per week.

• The surge is driven by 34 outbreaks facilitated by a decline in national kindergarten MMR vaccination rates to 92.5%, which sits dangerously below the 95% community immunity threshold.

• While major outbreaks in South Carolina and Utah have slowed, I expect a moderate case increase in the fall due to school reopenings, summer travel, and reduced staffing for contact tracing.

• Sustained transmission for over 12 months has placed the U.S. at imminent risk of losing its measles elimination status, a milestone held since 2000.

4. Saudi Arabia is authorised to enrich uranium

Reports of a US–Saudi agreement to allow nuclear enrichment have recently come out but have been conditioned by President Trump on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords.

• I predict a 24% probability that formal uranium enrichment authorisation will be granted before 2029, with the most likely decision point occurring in late 2028.

• The 123 Agreement signed on July 22, 2026 establishes a legal pathway for cooperation but conditions actual authorisation on a two-year joint feasibility study to assess the commercial viability of domestic enrichment.

• Significant political friction persists as the deal omits the Gold Standard renunciation of enrichment, and Saudi Arabia has not yet adopted the IAEA Additional Protocol for enhanced inspections.

• While Saudi policy mandates the indigenisation of the fuel cycle, experts suggest actual enrichment activity is likely a decade away, reducing the immediate pressure for authorisation before 2029.

5. The number of FDIC Bank failures in H2 2026

After calm 2024 and 2025, bank failures are ticking up again in 2026 — but is this the start of a wave, or just noise?

• My most likely prediction for the number of FDIC-insured failed banks closed in the second half of 2026 is 3.00, with a 50% chance of falling between 2.00 and 3.96.

• Two failures have already been recorded in July 2026: Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association and Small Business Bank, establishing a firm floor for the period’s total.

• The pipeline for future failures appears to be shrinking as the FDIC “Problem Bank List” declined from 60 to 54 institutions in early 2026, while industry net income rose 14.3% year-over-year.

• Macroeconomic headwinds, including a 12% increase in bankruptcy filings and commercial real estate stress, may trigger one additional small-scale closure but are unlikely to cause systemic contagion given the record-high 1.43% DIF reserve ratio.

This week’s focus is conditional forecasting: how explicit scenario modelling can help explain Mantic’s view of the future.

1. The price of oil in December 2026

Brent jumped almost 10 percent to $84 after the strikes resumed, its highest settle since mid-June. With the crisis unresolved and the Strait of Hormuz only shortly opened, where does crude settle by year end?

• I predict the average price of Brent crude in December 2026 will be $78.25, with a 50% chance of falling between $72.00 and $84.50.

• Downside pressure is expected to intensify late in the year as markets anticipate a massive 4.6 million b/d supply surplus in 2027, alongside declining oil demand in China due to rapid electric vehicle adoption.

• Significant upside risk persists from a potential return to hostilities in the Middle East, where previous disruptions in 2026 drove prices toward $120; current thin OECD inventories provide little protection against such shocks.

• Record non-OPEC+ production from the U.S., Brazil, and Canada acts as a structural headwind, likely capping sustained rallies unless significant geopolitical transit blockades re-emerge.

2. The Strait of Hormuz is open for at least 30 days before 2027

The Strait of Hormuz will be considered to have recovered if the 7-day moving average is at least 50 ships for 30 days straight, as in our previous post on the Iran conflict.

• My median prediction for Strait of Hormuz transits recovering to a 7-day moving average of 50 for 30 consecutive days is 7th May 2027.

• Current transit volumes have collapsed to 14-24 vessels per day following the July 14 reinstatement of a U.S. naval blockade and the breakdown of the June ceasefire.

• The 50-transit threshold represents only one-third of the pre-war baseline of 138 daily transits, yet this level was not achieved even during the peak of the recent Islamabad Memorandum.

• Major commercial carriers require approximately 30-45 incident-free days before resuming operations, meaning a sustained recovery cannot begin until well after a durable security agreement is reached.

• Prohibitive war-risk insurance premiums at 5% of vessel value act as a primary economic barrier that I expect will persist until a decisive military outcome or political settlement occurs in early 2027.

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3. The price of oil in December 2026 conditional on the status of the Strait of Hormuz

As above, the Strait of Hormuz recovery is defined as the 7-day moving average being at least 50 ships for 30 straight days. Specifically for the conditional forecasts, the scenario is that this occurs before 2027, which Forecast 2 above showed being 28%.”

Strait of Hormuz recovery: YES

• I primarily relied on the “futures curve”—the prices at which traders are currently agreeing to buy oil for delivery in late 2026. These market prices served as my strongest anchor, as they already reflect the collective wisdom of global participants. However, I adjusted these figures downward because the current market still prices in some possibility of continued disruption. By assuming the Strait is open, I accounted for a shift toward a market driven by supply and demand fundamentals rather than conflict.

• On the fundamental side, I weighed reports from major energy agencies like the IEA and EIA, which suggest a transition toward a “looser” market by 2026. Factors such as increasing production from non-OPEC countries and a projected global oversupply heading into 2027 were key motivating factors. While I considered the possibility of sudden demand spikes or production cuts elsewhere, my thinking leaned toward a scenario where prices stabilize as the “fear factor” of shipping disruptions dissipates.

Strait of Hormuz recovery: NO

• I first established a “business-as-usual” baseline using current futures markets and analyst consensus, which generally project prices in the $70–$85 range for late 2026. However, I determined that these estimates largely assume a return to geopolitical normalcy. By conditioning my forecast on the failure of transit levels to recover, I shifted my focus toward historical price spikes and risk scenarios modelled by international organisations like the World Bank.

• My thinking balanced two competing forces. On the one hand, a persistent blockage or impairment of a major transit chokepoint suggests a significant “war risk premium” and potential supply shortages. On the other hand, I accounted for the global economy’s ability to adapt over several months. Factors such as the rerouting of oil through pipelines, increased production from non-OPEC countries, and potential demand destruction due to high prices would likely prevent an uncapped rally. Consequently, I favoured a distribution that sits notably higher than current market prices but remains grounded by long-term economic headwinds.

4. The democrats win control of the Senate

While far more uncertain than the House, a once unlikely control of the Senate by the Democrats has become a real possibility in the last year.

• I predict the Republican Party will control the U.S. Senate after the 2026 elections with a 55% probability.

• Structural advantages provide a critical buffer for the GOP, as the current 53-47 split and Vice President J.D. Vance’s tie-breaking vote allow Republicans to lose up to three net seats while maintaining the majority.

• Democrats face a high bar for control, requiring a net gain of four seats to reach a 51-seat majority, a feat achieved by the opposition party in only 25% of cycles since 1980.

• Significant headwinds including 4.2% inflation, low consumer sentiment, and underwater presidential approval ratings favour Democratic gains, particularly as Republicans must defend 22 of the 35 seats at stake.

5. The price of oil in December 2026 conditional on the party in control of the Senate

Not all conditions move a price by acting on it directly. While the new Senate would only seat in early 2027, the results of the election will be known in November. Would the market react if Democrats took control of the Senate?

Democrats control of the Senate: YES

• The specific condition of a Democratic Senate victory was factored in as a modestly “bullish” (price-supporting) element. I reasoned that a Democratic-controlled Senate would likely maintain tighter environmental regulations and be less aggressive in expanding domestic drilling permits compared to the alternative, slightly constraining future supply. However, because Brent is a globally traded commodity and the new Senate wouldn’t take office until after the forecast month, I treated this as a minor upward nudge rather than a transformative driver. Finally, I accounted for oil’s inherent volatility by maintaining wide “tails” in my distribution to cover the possibility of unexpected economic shocks or major supply disruptions.

Democrats control of the Senate: NO

• Regarding the specific condition that the Democratic Party does not win the Senate, I viewed this as a “status quo” or slightly bearish factor. I reasoned that this outcome might favour domestic U.S. energy production and reduce the likelihood of new regulatory constraints, though I concluded the immediate impact on global oil prices within the same month as the election would be relatively modest. Finally, I maintained wide bounds to account for the high historical volatility of the oil market.

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Scott discusses:

• The history of the field

• Two engines that enabled human-level forecasting performance

• Why these engines may not enable superhuman forecasting performance

• Two ideas to remedy this: 1) a new kind of forecasting tournament, and 2) training models for forecasting with reinforcement learning

1. The number of US job cuts attributed to AI in 2027

Fears about AI job displacement have been increasing in the last few years but seem to finally have some solid footing with more layoffs attributed to AI in 26H1 than in the full year 2025. Will next year maintain the acceleration?

• My most likely prediction for US job cuts attributed to AI in 2027 is 247,000, with a 50% chance of falling between 166,000 and 328,000.

• This forecast is driven by an unprecedented acceleration in 2026, where AI-attributed layoffs reached 101,743 in the first half of the year alone, representing a 23% share of all US job cuts. The shift from experimental to structural AI-driven restructuring is evidenced by major firms like Oracle and Meta redirecting capital from human labor to AI infrastructure.

2. The winner of the 2027 French presidential election

On July 7, the Paris Court of Appeal overturned Marine Le Pen’s ineligibility.

• I predict Marine Le Pen has a 33% probability of winning the 2027 French presidential election.

• Her candidacy is bolstered by a July 2026 court ruling that effectively cleared her legal path to run, followed by immediate polling dominance at 34-36% in the first round.

• Economic tailwinds for the far-right include a high 5.1% deficit and low consumer confidence (84 points), which together foster an anti-incumbent environment that penalizes centrist “heirs” like Edouard Philippe.

• While the “Republican Front” tactical voting strategy has historically blocked the far-right, polling now shows its efficacy at a historical low, with Le Pen leading Philippe 51-54% in potential runoff matchups.

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3. Iranian crude production in August

After the Memorandum of Understanding collapsed and strikes resumed this week, the market’s real question isn’t the politics but the availability of Iranian barrels. Will the Iranian crude actually reach buyers, or vanish again?

• I predict Iran’s crude oil production in August 2026 will be 2,912.50 tb/d, with a 50% chance of falling between 2,712.50 and 3,112.50 tb/d.

• The recovery is driven by the late June lifting of the U.S. naval blockade and a 60-day sanctions waiver that has cleared massive domestic storage bottlenecks, allowing for the aggressive restart of shut-in wells.

• Production is unlikely to reach the pre-war baseline of 3,241 tb/d due to estimated infrastructure damage of up to $19 billion and the technical ‘slow grind’ associated with restoring complex maritime platforms.

4. When Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon

President Trump has said Israeli forces will leave Lebanon but signals from Jerusalem are mixed, making it the key unknown for whether the regional escalation is winding down or escalating again.

• Israeli leadership has institutionalized an indefinite presence within a 10-kilometer security buffer, stating that troops will remain until Hezbollah is fully disarmed and displaced residents return to northern Israel.

• The 2026 U.S.-brokered framework agreement is effectively frozen due to Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm and the Lebanese Armed Forces’ inability to provide security guarantees following a 98 percent depreciation in real salary value.

• Historical precedent suggests long-term occupation; the previous Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon lasted 15 years, and current entrenchment—including village demolitions—points toward a multi-year timeline.

5. When the SEC adopts a final rule on semiannual reporting

A political push to reduce quarterly reporting to semi-annual has run into strong pushback, notably from retail investors. Will the SEC listen to their demands or move with the change?

• I predict a 4% probability that the SEC will adopt a final rule for semi-annual reporting by the October 9, 2026 deadline.

• The SEC must process 68,000 public comments, with 99% in opposition, requiring a legally defensible record under the Administrative Procedure Act that typically takes 6-12 months to finalize.

• Intense pushback from major institutional investors like BlackRock and Vanguard, alongside the SEC’s own Investor Advisory Committee, necessitates a robust and time-consuming economic analysis to survive certain litigation.

• While the 3-0 Republican majority and the White House strongly support the shift to reduce $330,000 in annual compliance costs per firm, the 95-day window from the close of comments is mechanically insufficient for a final vote.

• Scott is giving an invited talk at the Workshop on AI Forecasting on Saturday 11th July from 13:30 to 14:15 in the Grand Ballroom (104–105)

• Matthew and Scott will present three papers (details below) in the poster session on Saturday 11th July from 12:15 to 13:30 in Hall A.

• We’re hosting a dinner on Thursday 9th July

Reach out to Scott or Matthew directly to meet up and learn more about Mantic.

Invited talk: Towards Superhuman Forecasting

Scott’s invited talk is about the path to superhuman forecasting, covering how AI systems have achieved human-level forecasting, asking whether the methods we’ve used to get this far will keep working, and outlining some paths we see for making further progress.

The talk is provisionally scheduled to run after lunch on Saturday 11th from 13:30 to 14:15 in the Grand Ballroom (104–105). Check the workshop site for final scheduling details on the day.

Spotlight: Reaching the frontier of AI forecasting with reinforcement learning

Scott and Matthew will present their work on reaching the frontier of AI forecasting with reinforcement learning, accepted as spotlight at the workshop. The paper explains how we raised gpt-oss-120b to frontier model performance (as we previously introduced on the Thinking Machines website) .

Poster: Diversity is the strength of the AI crowd

Matthew and Scott will present our investigation into how the wisdom of the crowds applies to a crowd of AIs. We find that certain weaker models — in this case, Grok 4 — can earn their place in the team by contributing a diversity of thinking, which makes them less substitutable than the frontier models.

Poster: An adversarial tournament design for efficiently probing the frontier of AI forecasting

Scott and Matthew will be presenting our work in developing a new kind of forecasting tournament designed to more efficiently probe the frontier. Unlike existing tournaments, we have participants both making forecasts and posing forecasting questions, with the question-writers scored for how much disagreement they are able to induce among the forecasters. Our first tournament using this design, Series 1, is live now and we have previously written about the idea on this blog.

Meet the team

Come find Scott and Matthew this Saturday 11th July at:

• The forecasting workshop (Grand Ballroom).

• The poster session: 12:15 to 13:30 in Hall A.

Or reach out directly over LinkedIn (Scott, Matthew) or the ICML app.

The Iran conflict is the most important global issue today. Many people turn to prediction markets like Polymarket or Kalshi because they have demonstrated impressive accuracy. Nonetheless, these platforms don’t provide a comprehensive view, due to gaps in market coverage and definitional issues.

Which questions would we ask if we were unconstrained by trading volume, settlement contracts, or any factor that shapes which forecasts get produced on these platforms?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with Mantic to build a dashboard of 28 questions I consider most worth answering. Mantic normally uses AI to generate forecasting questions but I’ve adopted a centaur approach, combining my (human) question writing skills with Mantic’s AI forecasting capability. Although AI forecasting accuracy has caught up to professional levels, asking the right questions is an art that AI has yet to master.

This post walks through my questions on the Strait of Hormuz, the ceasefire, military engagement, regime change and energy prices among others, to show what unconstrained forecasting on this conflict looks like. I’ll compare throughout to Polymarket’s coverage.

Strait of Hormuz

The most important question is when traffic through the Strait returns to pre-conflict levels. The economic stakes are obvious, to the tune of over $10B per day. The less discussed concern is precedent: the longer this lasts, the more similar moves become possible at the Malacca, Turkish or Taiwan Straits. Likewise, a toll regime in Hormuz could open the door for every chokepoint actor. Here are the questions I asked, with Mantic's forecasts:

With a generous reading, 4 out of 6 of these questions could be considered as covered by Polymarket but the criterion differences make it closer to 2 out of 6.

Their most informative question is the average number of ships transiting by the end of May, but there is no equivalent for June. The same gap shows up on the max number of ships on a single day by the end of month. Its“traffic returns to normal” series has better granularity across dates (May 15, end of May, end of June, July 31, December 31). However, they’ve set a lower threshold than I would have: a 7-day moving average of 60 transits hit on any single date in the window. With around 2,000 ships currently stranded, a few well-organized days could clear that threshold before the Strait re-clogs; 420 ships across seven days is enough, while pre-conflict daily traffic ran above 100, sometimes up to 130. A resolution could happen quickly and satisfy the criterion before things get to a halt again. Finally, their toll market is both short horizon and resolves to Trump publicly accepting Iran charging fees for transit. Given how often his announcements have detached from reality, that’s an obvious case where a resolution could split from the question it appears to track.

Ceasefire or definitive peace agreement

Reaching a definitive ceasefire or a peace agreement is obviously important as it would impact all forecasts in the dashboard. Here are the questions I asked, with Mantic's forecasts:

These are obvious questions to ask, so Polymarket’s good coverage (3 out of 4) is unsurprising, with caveats.

The US-Iran ceasefire was agreed April 8 and extended indefinitely on April 21. Polymarket ran an extension market in the first weeks tracking specific extension dates, but the series stopped after April 22, leaving roughly a month with no live market on the most active diplomatic question of the conflict. A daily-resolution ceasefire market appeared on May 20, only five days before the ceasefire actually broke. In the intervening window, anyone using Polymarket to know whether the ceasefire was holding had no explicit live signal.

They were also focused on very specific attack mediums that would breach the ceasefire and did not have a general question about a breach of the ceasefire, something that is quite likely early on. A separate gap appeared in the first hours of the April 8 ceasefire: it was unclear whether it covered Israel or only the US, and no market addressed that until April 17, despite it being a very plausible reason for early breakdown. Polymarket now has an Israel x Iran permanent peace deal market and a US x Iran one, but the first market only exists for May 31 and June 30 and does not look at ceasefires. The newest ceasefire extension market resolves on a Trump announcement rather than on whether hostilities have actually resumed, which is the same appearance versus reality problem as the Strait markets.

Military engagement

The evolution of the military side of the conflict is a variable that shapes nearly every other forecast on the dashboard. The ceasefire has held the picture frozen for weeks but could break at any time. Plausible deniability for Gulf-state involvement, restraint on energy infrastructure, and the absence of ground forces have been the operative norms so far, but each could break abruptly.

Polymarket currently covers none of these questions.

Regime change

Regime change is one of the hardest topics for question-writing, and current markets illustrate why. The main Polymarket regime fall market requires that core structures of the Islamic Republic such as the Supreme Leader or the Guardian Council be dissolved or replaced by a fundamentally different governing system.

The problem is that Iran is already, functionally, an IRGC-dominated state. They control vast shares of the economy, hold an increasing share of senior political positions, and are by far the strongest military force in the country. They backed Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader despite his lacking the formal qualifications, and there is reason to believe they are using his current condition to consolidate further power. The most consequential outcome by far under this criterion is whether the IRGC loses power as the end of the Supreme Leader or the Guardian Council would not by themselves change the daily reality of the regime.

There is therefore only one question which matters:

Energy prices

Oil briefly moved above $120 a barrel and could go higher if the situation deteriorates again. This matters everywhere, but US midterms are particularly sensitive to gas prices. The LNG capacity loss will hit Europe and Asia hardest as winter demand is the next major load on the system; in economies already carrying heavy debt, the damage won't stay inside the energy market.

Polymarket only covers the US strategic reserve question. They do have some markets around oil and natural gas prices and oil production but all are constrained to the same short horizon with almost nothing extending past June. Mantic's coverage runs much further out, which is where most of the interesting questions sit.

Other questions

Polymarket covers 3 out of 5 of these questions, with the usual time horizon limitations.

The questions walked through here weren’t adversarially chosen against prediction markets. Still, even with a generous reading, only 12 of the 28 are covered by Polymarket at all. Once you factor in the resolution criteria and time-horizon issues, it drops to roughly a quarter being actually covered.

Polymarket’s coverage on the topics it does run is mostly fine but sometimes has structural issues such as the criteria for the Strait returning to normal, the regime change question or the Israel framing inside the ceasefire. It is lacking on long-horizon markets, as most don’t currently extend past June. Many decisions a reader might make about Iran would look different given a forecast six months or a year out.

This is not unique to prediction markets. Exchanging with other top forecasters is one of the best ways I’ve found to sharpen my read on the world but it also runs into its own limits: the pool is small, and our time, interests and knowledge are all limited too. It can be hard to get that essential back-and-forth once the questions get niche enough, even on topics as debated as the Iran conflict.

With Mantic now regularly competing with the best human forecasters, I was curious how much it could help as an iterative forecasting partner that goes well beyond what the frontier LLMs offer. So far the experience has been very positive. I haven’t exchanged any less with other pros, but I now have a very competent control group for every forecast I’ve wondered about, no matter how niche or complex the subject. I believe this means both sharper forecasts and significantly more of them.

Mantic is creating a new kind of tournament to probe the frontier of AI forecasting. Participants will compete to write forecasting questions that the best AI forecasting systems disagree on; the greater the disagreement, the greater the cash prize. There is a $25,000 USD prize pool for question-writers.

We are looking for question-writers and AI forecasters to take part.

• If you are interested in being a question-writer apply here.

• If you are interested in entering an AI forecaster apply here.

Applications are now closed.

In detail

Motivation

AI forecasting systems have improved significantly over the last few years, in part thanks to tournaments like the Metaculus FutureEval series. We think the most valuable resource that these tournaments provide is information about where further progress can be made, and this comes from seeing where the leading systems disagree. Because the forecasts include explanations, we can reason about which system was right in a particular disagreement.

At Mantic we think a lot about the problem of detecting whether a particular forecasting question was ‘hard’ or ‘impossible’. In both cases, your system scores badly. The distinction is whether there was anything you could have reasonably done to improve your forecast. In the impossible case, there wasn’t; in the hard case, there was. Detecting the difference in general is likely equivalent to solving forecasting. Detecting the difference for a specific case only requires that a different forecasting system disagrees with you and can explain why.

What we’re talking about here is the difference between aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty. Aleatoric uncertainty is the irreducible uncertainty that comes from randomness in a system, epistemic uncertainty comes from your lack of understanding of the system. No matter how well you study a fair coin, your uncertainty about the result of a flip stays the same, and that is the aleatoric uncertainty.

Where do the best forecasters disagree? The Goldilocks zone.

Until recently, disagreement between AI systems was dominated by simple errors in understanding or reasoning. However, as these systems have approached human-level forecasting, their disagreements have become more interesting: they reveal divergent models of the world or differences in their ability to gather relevant information, i.e. the differences in their epistemic uncertainty.

Unfortunately, most tournament questions do not probe these differences. Forecasters agree on both solved questions, where all that remains is the irreducible aleatoric uncertainty, and questions where no system has been able to make relative progress in reducing their epistemic uncertainty. Between these is the Goldilocks zone where there is some variation in the degree of understanding.

We think targeting the Goldilocks zone is likely to be well-aligned with pursuing high value-of-information (VOI) questions. Far from the Goldilocks zone, the forecasters add very little information, either because they make no progress or because the problem is already solved.

Core idea

Given that the level of disagreement between top forecasters determines how useful a tournament is for making progress, we think we should try optimising for disagreement. The dual tournament sets up a feedback loop that drives progress by incentivising the question-writers to discover weaknesses in the forecasters, which the forecasters are incentivised to patch. This keeps the focus tightly tracking the frontier and makes the tournament as effective as possible.

Similar dynamics are present in interspecies competition, curriculum learning, and improving security via simulated adversarial attacks or red teaming.

Tournament structure

The tournament will run for four months from the middle of April to the middle of August and there will be around 500 questions in total with some front loading of questions. We’re looking to recruit up to 50 question-writers and 20 forecasters.

All questions and forecasts will be made publicly available. Leaderboards for both question-writing and forecasting will be publicly accessible throughout the tournament. This includes the specific questions, forecasts, resolutions, and the results of any appeals.

For forecasters

The forecasting component will follow the structure used in Metaculus AI competitions for the basics: questions will be released without warning around the clock, competitors will have an hour to submit their forecast, and spot peer scoring will be used. There will be ~no changes from the Metaculus API, so if your system is set up to participate in Metaculus tournaments then you will only need to change the base URL to forecast in this tournament.

Nonprofessional forecasters will have their costs subsidised at $2 per forecast. A prize pool of up to $5,000 will also be distributed based on the final standings.1

Questions will be resolved automatically by LLM judges and competitors will have the option to appeal to a panel of human judges if they believe there has been an error. The panel will be selected from the question-writers and announced ahead of the start of the competition.

For question-writers

Each question-writer will be allocated a budget of questions and given access to a question submission flow that includes AI assistants to help refine and improve their questions. Questions will be automatically screened for general suitability to avoid trivial or ambiguous questions. Submitted questions will be queued for forecasting by the AI systems and once the forecasting is complete, questions will be scored based on the degree of disagreement between the forecasters. This means question writers will get fast feedback on the quality of their submissions and the question-writing leaderboard will be live-updating. See our technical appendix for more detail on the scoring methodology.

The maximum disagreement score that can be achieved is a little less than 500 points and we will pay $10 for every 100 points. Any prize money that remains at the end of the tournament will be distributed in proportion to the final leaderboard standings.

Applying

We are looking for question-writers and AI forecasters to take part.

• If you are interested in being a question-writer apply here.

• If you are interested in entering an AI forecaster apply here.

At Mantic, we are building a general AI superforecaster to predict the world’s most important issues. We currently have the strongest AI track record for prediction accuracy, placing 4th in a recent major forecasting tournament against human forecasters, which was covered by The Atlantic.1

The Iran crisis is therefore a live test of our system – this is the first major geopolitical crisis where advanced AI forecasting capabilities are available to generate predictions in real time.

Mantic has been built to get predictions right, update them frequently, and automatically expand the question space as events unfold. So far, we’ve performed well across these three dimensions:

1. Accuracy: on the questions that have resolved, Mantic’s forecasts held up well against outcomes and prediction markets.

2. Speed: our “tripwires”, which monitor news sources and markets and trigger fresh forecasts when relevant developments are detected, have been running around the clock as the situation evolves.

3. Scale: the system automatically generates new downstream forecasting questions as the crisis cascades into energy, shipping, and macro domains.

We break down the details below.

How has Mantic performed so far

The US strike

Prior to the initial attack on February 28th, Mantic had the probability of a US military strike against Iran at approx. 70% by mid-2026, comparable to prediction markets. The question was automatically identified and generated by the system on January 14. Unlike prediction markets, where a separate market is required for each deadline, Mantic forecasts events as a probability distribution over future dates, generating predictions of a given event happening by any date, over time, and providing a much more granular view of when something will occur.2

Case in point below. On the eve of the strikes, around midnight UTC on Feb 28, it put the probability of the event happening at 15% over the next 24 hours. By 6:17am, just minutes before the news of the strike broke, Mantic’s tripwires triggered due to price moves in markets, updating its forecast to 48% for February 28. Its final rationale cited the large scale of US naval and air force deployments to the Gulf of Oman, with escalating executive rhetoric and a perceived window of Iranian regime vulnerability. It noted that while Gulf state airspace restrictions and 70% domestic opposition provided significant headwinds, the administration’s ‘locked and loaded’ posture suggested the threshold for kinetic action had already been lowered.

Oil market disruptions

In the hours following the attack, Mantic’s forecast for the Strait of Hormuz closing to commercial shipping jumped from around 20% to 80%.3 The probability of a military attack on a commercial vessel in the Strait rose in parallel, reaching 83% by March 4, before the Safeen Prestige, a Malta-flagged container ship, became the first commercial vessel to be struck within the Strait itself.4

As the conflict escalated, Mantic started generating new downstream questions such as the probability of QatarEnergy declaring force majeure on its LNG contracts. The question was generated on March 1. On March 2, Iranian drone strikes at the Ras Laffan LNG facility led QatarEnergy to halt production, and Mantic updated its forecast significantly upwards to around 70%. On March 4, force majeure was declared.

Importantly, these questions did not have matching prediction markets. Mantic identified them as relevant and assigned accurate probabilities before any market existed to do the same.

What’s next

As the crisis persists, here is where some of our live forecasts stand as of March 24.

Ceasefire or escalation?

Ceasefire prospects between the US and Iran by June 30 stand at around 75% by mid-year, up from roughly 60% over the weekend, following signals of a possible diplomatic off-ramp from the Trump administration on March 23. Mantic identifies the spring as the most likely window, with the median date in late April: the operational timelines for Epic Fury and Lion's Roar point toward an April conclusion of the high-intensity phase, Iran's missile capacity is roughly 90% degraded, and oil above $100 is creating pressure to prevent a global recession, particularly for the Trump administration ahead of midterm elections later this year. But the path to a ceasefire is complicated by several escalation risks that are still live.

The probability of a US or Israeli strike on Kharg Island — Iran's primary oil export terminal — has fallen to 3% by end-March following the announcement of a five-day pause on strategic strikes by the US, but remains at 25% by mid-year. Mantic views the main risk window beginning after the pause if Hormuz remains constrained or Iran escalates, though it notes that strikes on the island have so far deliberately avoided oil infrastructure: the maritime blockade has already halted Iranian exports, so destroying the facility would add environmental risk and further oil supply shocks for little additional strategic gain. US officials have also discussed seizing the island rather than destroying it, a move that would defund the regime while preserving the infrastructure for any eventual transition.

Any seizure scenario would require boots on the ground. Mantic puts the odds of a US ground deployment into Iran at 28% by June 30, down from 40-45% earlier this month as the diplomatic signals have shifted. The arrival of US Marines in the Gulf still creates a near-term window for amphibious operations — whether seizing Kharg Island or neutralizing other coastal infrastructure — but the administration’s recent rhetoric suggests a preference for declaring victory through air power and economic pressure rather than a ground campaign. A majority of US voters oppose a ground invasion and broader coalition support from key allies remains thin, making anything beyond limited coastal operations unlikely without a months long build-up.

Regime change in Iran?

The Iranian regime has entered its most unstable period in decades. Mojtaba Khamenei was confirmed as Supreme Leader on March 8, but Mantic gives him a high (61%) probability of being removed by year-end, due to the combination of possible physical injuries sustained during the Feb. 28 airstrikes, active foreign targeting, and a lack of traditional clerical legitimacy.

President Pezeshkian’s position has improved: during the succession crisis, our tool had him around 60% to leave office by mid-year, but this has since fallen to around 29% after he publicly aligned his administration with the new leadership. The regime collapse and elite purge scenarios have not materialised as quickly as feared, and Mantic now views him as more likely to remain in office — though hardline consolidation under Mojtaba still leaves a meaningful probability of early departure.

Energy supply

The center of gravity is the Strait of Hormuz, where commercial shipping has effectively ceased. Mantic forecasts a 59% probability that the Strait will reopen by June 30. This is down from ~80% two weeks ago. The economic pressure for reopening is immense, with over 20% of global oil supply choked off and Brent prices above $100, the status quo is unsustainable. Our tool sees two reopening pathways: a diplomatic off-ramp, with Oman-mediated talks now reportedly underway, or a military-enforced security corridor following the degradation of Iranian naval assets. But even after hostilities subside, a full normalization of commercial traffic will require minesweeping efforts and a restoration of war risk insurance, both of which could lag a ceasefire by weeks to months.

Physical infrastructure mostly survived the beginning of the war but came under the spotlight with facilities targeted on both sides in the past week. The probability of a major attack on Saudi or UAE oil facilities causing a disruption of at least 500,000 barrels per day rose to ~80% over the weekend but has corrected back to 45-50% following the five-day pause announcement.5 QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan facility was hit on March 18 with reports of extensive damage to key liquefaction infrastructure. The probability that QatarEnergy will lift its force majeure on LNG shipments by mid-year is now close to zero, given the scale of damage, the ongoing Strait of Hormuz blockade, and CEO al-Kaabi’s explicit condition that production requires a total cessation of hostilities.

Global economic fallout

The energy supply shock is now propagating across the global economy. Mantic places the odds of Brent crude closing at or above $120 by mid-year at 49%, down from a high of 75% a week ago. Prices have already tested this level intraday but have pulled back following the strike pause and a record IEA strategic reserve release. The supply gap from the Strait closure remains on the order of 17 million barrels per day but the outcome now hinges largely on whether the current diplomatic window produces a de-escalation or collapses back into strikes on energy infrastructure.

For global monetary policy, the crisis presents a stagflationary dilemma. In the US, a weakening labor market would normally invite cuts but the risk of energy-driven inflationary pressures mean that the probability of a Fed rate cut at the June meeting has fallen to 10%. Prediction markets seem to agree, and Mantic has generally put a higher probability than markets on this hawkish tilt over the last weeks. The ECB’s position is starker. The probability of a rate cut in June sits at just 3%, with a >70% probability of a hike. The energy price shock has effectively ended the easing cycle in Europe.

Navigating an uncertain world

Most of the questions in this post did not exist a month ago. As the crisis cascaded from airstrikes to energy disruptions to monetary policy, Mantic generated them, assigned probabilities, and monitored for updates 24/7, in real time, in many cases where no prediction market existed. The world is becoming more complex and more fragmented. We are building to help decision makers navigate this uncertainty.

We are accepting commercial clients — reach out at mantic.com