FantasySCOTUS: Crowdsourcing a Prediction Market for the Supreme Court
FantasySCOTUS: Crowdsourcing a Prediction Market for the Supreme Court
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FantasySCOTUS：众包最高法院的预测市场
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发表时间：
2011
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通讯作者：
Corey M. Carpenter
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作者：
J. Blackman;A. Aft;Corey M. Carpenter
每年，美国最高法院都会吸引数百万美国人的注意和好奇心，但法院的内部运作并不完全透明。最高法院只对它希望审理的案件作出裁决，不作任何解释。他们私下商议并指定作者。大法官听取口头辩论，几个月后在没有通知的情况下发表意见。他们有时会在口头辩论中通过提问提供神秘的线索。从争论到最高法院发表意见，案件的结果基本上是一个谜。有时结果福尔斯沿着可预测的路线下降;其他时候结果完全是一个惊喜。法院观察家经常在文章、博客和其他地方对案件做出预测。就个人而言，有些可能是对的，有些可能是错的。直到最近，还没有办法汇集这种集体智慧，并对美国最高法院待审的所有案件进行事先预测。现在有这样一个工具。来自哈兰研究所的FantasySCOTUS.net是互联网上首屈一指的最高法院幻想联盟，也是第一个众包预测市场的审慎投机。在2009年10月的最高法院任期内，超过5,000名成员对所有81个案件做出了超过11,000个预测。根据这些数据，FantasySCOTUS正确预测了超过50%的案件的结果，排名靠前的预测者正确预测了75%的案件。本文探讨了这个预测市场中人群的智慧，并评估了FantasySCOTUS的准确性。FantasySCOTUS只有两年的历史，但这个信息市场的含义和应用是耐人寻味的。这篇文章认为FantasySCOTUS可能的未来。首先，从审慎的角度来看，FantasySCOTUS阐明了公众对最高法院作为一个机构如何运作的看法。具体来说，它作为一个全面的民意调查工具，提供了一个诚实的，虽然不科学的，调查，反映了如何大样本量的法院观察员认为法官和他们的法律的现实主义意识形态倾向，特别是在5-4个决定。如果FantasySCOTUS能准确地将每一位大法官都减少到只不过是保守派或自由派的投票，那可能会对法治和客观、超然的评判标准产生更广泛的影响。从实践的角度来看，随着FantasySCOTUS的未来版本更加准确，律师将能够依靠这个程序来帮助他们做出涉及最高法院未决案件的诉讼决定。随着我们对司法行为的理解的提高--也许是通过扫描PACER（公开访问法院电子记录）中的所有文件--该程序可以从纯粹的众包技术转变为商品化的超级计算器信息服务，可以为下级法院创建预测引擎。一个交互式的诉讼助理--想想iPhone的Siri应用程序--可以让律师和外行通过简单的提问就能立即理解和掌握任何特定领域的法律。这种技术对执业律师具有巨大价值，并为那些负担不起律师费用的人提供诉诸司法的机会。这是法律信息革命的承诺，我们希望FantasySCOTUS只是迈向未来的第一步。
Every year the Supreme Court of the United States captivates the minds and curiosity of millions of Americans - yet the inner-workings of the Court are not fully transparent. The Court, without explanation, decides only the cases it wishes. They deliberate and assign authorship in private. The Justices hear oral arguments, and without notice, issue an opinion months later. They sometimes offer enigmatic clues during oral arguments through their questions. Between arguments and the day the Court issues an opinion, the outcome of a case is essentially a mystery. Sometimes the outcome falls along predictable lines; other times the outcome is a complete surprise. Court watchers frequently make predictions about the cases in articles, on blogs, and elsewhere. Individually, some may be right, some may be wrong. Until recently, there was not a way to pool together this collective wisdom, and aggregate ex ante predictions for all cases pending before the United States Supreme Court. Now there is such a tool. FantasySCOTUS.net from the Harlan Institute is the Internet’s premier Supreme Court Fantasy League, and the first crowdsourced prediction market for jurisprudential speculation. During the October 2009 Supreme Court Term, over 5,000 members made more than 11,000 predictions for all eighty-one cases decided. Based on these data, FantasySCOTUS correctly predicted the outcome in more than fifty percent of the cases decided, and the top-ranked predictors forecasted seventy-five percent of the cases correctly. This essay explores the wisdom of the crowds in this prediction market and assesses the accuracy of FantasySCOTUS. FantasySCOTUS is only two years old, but the implications and applications of this information market are intriguing. This article considers the possible future of FantasySCOTUS. First, from a jurisprudential perspective, FantasySCOTUS illuminates public perceptions of how the Supreme Court works as an institution. Specifically, it serves as a comprehensive polling device to provide an honest, albeit unscientific, survey that reflects how a large sample size of Court watchers view the Justices and their legal realist ideological proclivities, particularly in 5–4 decisions. If FantasySCOTUS can accurately reduce each of the Justices to nothing more than a conservative, or liberal vote, that may have broader implications to the rule of law, and objective, detached standards of judging. From a practical perspective, with more accurate future versions of FantasySCOTUS, attorneys will be able to rely on this program to assist them with litigation decisions involving cases pending before the Supreme Court. As our understanding of judicial behavior improves - perhaps through scanning all filings in PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) - and the program can shift from a pure crowdsourcing technique to a commoditized super cruncher information service, a prediction engine can be created for lower courts. An interactive litigation assistant - think of the iPhone’s Siri application - could allow attorneys and laymen alike to instantly understand and grasp the law in any given area by simply asking questions. Such technology would be of great value for practicing attorneys, and provide access to justice to people who cannot afford lawyers. This is the promise of law’s information revolution, of which we hope FantasySCOTUS is but a first step to the future.