Animal Futures: what the forecasts say so far
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The Animal Futures tournament lists 21 questions. Its original 16 now have 45–66 forecasters each (mean 51). Five added on September 20 have 15–23 each (mean 18), up from 11–15 after their first three days.
One question has resolved: a new cultivated-meat product received regulatory approval following Aleph Farms’ Singapore approval. That is a real milestone, although commercial availability remains limited.
The crowd estimates suggest a harder path from milestones to scale. Forecasters put 2% on plant-based meat and seafood reaching 10% of US retail packaged-meat dollar sales before 2031, down from 3% on September 23. The estimate for approval of Nueva Pescanova’s octopus farm remains 2%. Forecasters put about 83% probability on at least one additional US state cultivated-meat ban before July 2027, under that question’s definition.
One striking forecast remains the EU–US gap in in-ovo sexing: 42.9% of EU commercial layers versus 3.06% of the US hen flock in Q1 2027. A commenter’s questions about the EU denominator and revised data led Metaculus to clarify the measure.
There are 32 comments across the 21 question cards, including replies; nine questions have none. On a new cage-free law question, commenters caught a mismatch between the July event cutoff and earlier date wording in the fine print. A follow-up noted the issue, and a later reply said the fine print was changed. It now agrees with the July 1, 2027 cutoff.
For funders, advocates, and policymakers, the forecasts can point to evidence worth gathering next: adoption after approval, implementation after company pledges, and reasons for the EU–US technology gap. They do not rank interventions by welfare impact. I found no publicly documented funding or policy decision citing a tournament forecast in the sources checked. Only one question has resolved, so it is too early to judge forecasting accuracy.
Help improve the next update. Add forecasts and evidence on the Metaculus questions. On the full update, highlight a passage and use the Hypothes.is sidebar to suggest a correction, identify a decision these forecasts could change, or propose a useful next question. The page also has suggestions for running the tournament. It is scheduled for review every ten days.