Prediction markets are the newest form of speculative competition

Evidence

Zuboff (2019) shows how such computational technologies are drawn in Silicon Valley as the driving force of a new field of competition and commodification: the market for the best predictions, which are the most powerful speculations. But even computational algorithms for modeling and predicting the future often fail because of the inherent unpredictability of human behavior. Arguably, the single greatest success of computational technologies has been their harnessing of the multilayered complexity that has enveloped all human activities. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 447

Categorization

• XREF: Forms the core of the trading-floor-to-everything migration the reader is tracking—prediction markets as speculative capital. — connects to: Derivatives are speculative techniques betting on future asset-price movements — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 153; Financialization shifts markets from calculation to speculation, destroying predictability — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 742