uas-patterns · PIE intelligence

Estimative Language

What PIE's numbers and qualifiers actually mean. Every flag, prediction, and brief judgment uses the fixed lexicon on this page — modeled on the U.S. Intelligence Community's analytic standards (ICD 203) — so a term means the same thing every day, on every surface.

The one rule that matters

Likelihood and confidence are different axes, and PIE never mixes them in one sentence. Likelihood is the estimated probability of an event ("a Boson supply squeeze is likely within 8 weeks"). Confidence is how strong the evidence behind a judgment is ("high confidence — two primary sources"). A high-confidence judgment can describe an unlikely event, and vice versa.

Flag confidence — evidence tiers

Each flag carries a confidence score (0–100%). It grades the evidence chain, not the probability of an outcome.

Score	Tier	What it means
90–100%	PRIMARY SOURCE	Verified from government records, teardown reports, court filings, or direct documentation.
80–89%	STRONG INFERENCE	Multiple corroborating sources; the conclusion is well-supported.
60–79%	ANALYTICAL	Derived from parts-db and supply-chain analysis; reflects PIE's methodology and its limits.
<60%	SIGNAL	Early indicator. Treat as a lead to investigate, not a conclusion.

Prediction likelihood — probability terms

Predictions carry a numeric probability. When the brief or a flag uses a likelihood word, it maps to these bands — the standard ICD 203 spectrum:

Probability	Term
<5%	remote / almost no chance
5–20%	very unlikely
20–45%	unlikely
45–55%	roughly even odds
55–80%	likely
80–95%	very likely
>95%	almost certain

Prediction confidence is a separate field: it reflects inter-model agreement in the ensemble (and cross-validation across LLM providers), not the probability of the event. How well-calibrated these numbers have been is tracked publicly on Forecast Accountability.

Judgment confidence — in the brief

Level	Basis
HIGH confidence	Multiple independent sources, at least one primary; minimal reliance on assumptions.
MODERATE confidence	Credibly sourced and plausible, but single-threaded or partly inferred.
LOW confidence	Fragmentary or uncorroborated sourcing; significant analytic assumptions.

Major judgments state their basis inline — e.g. "moderate confidence; derived from parts-db concentration plus one reporting source."

Source types — on every flag

Type	Meaning
primary	Government record, filing, official document, or physical teardown.
reporting	Journalism or trade-press coverage of the event.
aggregated	Compiled from multiple feeds (e.g. distributor stock APIs, contract databases).
derived	Computed by PIE's own analysis (concentration ratios, correlations, graph traversal).
estimated	Modeled estimate where direct data is unavailable.

Risk labels are analytic signals, not allegations. Full methodology — flag taxonomy, gray-zone scoring dimensions, and known data gaps — is published at uas-handbook.com. Machine access to all underlying data: data API reference.