Artificial intelligence now beats some of the best human forecasters

On September 5th an AI won the seasonal Metaculus Cup for the first time; AIs also took 2nd and 5th, with humans 3rd and 4th. Entrants forecasted questions resolving by September (e.g., data-centre development restrictions, oil prices). Human entrants shared US$3.24K prize, but FutureSearch's Kalshi portfolio was up 6% since June on an initial $100,000 by betting where its AI thinks markets are wrong. A Preseen developer turned $35 into $1.94m over seven months on Kalshi despite missing the top five. AI forecasters use general LLMs rather than narrow domain models, reading news broadly and explaining reasoning. Human superforecaster reports can cost more than $10,000 and take a week; FutureSearch quotes minutes and a few dollars—while other startups sell to hedge funds and governments at higher prices.