SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " vu " 2,604 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Parents warn RCSD budget could weaken student mental health services
Parents told RCSD leaders budget cuts could harm vulnerable students, even as officials said some positions have been restored.
Microsoft releases emergency patches for critical ASP.NET flaw
Microsoft has released out-of-band (OOB) security updates to patch a critical ASP.NET Core privilege escalation vulnerability.
Northrop Grumman takes $71 million charge on Vulcan booster issue
Northrop Grumman said April 21 it took a $71 million charge in its fiscal first quarter linked to an anomaly with a Vulcan Centaur solid rocket booster.
Mozilla says it patched 271 Firefox vulnerabilities thanks to Anthropic's Claude Mythos
Mozilla shared some details that support Anthropic's Claude Mythos AI model as a way to protect critical services.
Mozilla: Anthropic's Mythos found 271 zero-day vulnerabilities in Firefox 150
CTO says new AI model is "every bit as capable" as world's best security researchers.
Leading with heart: Juan Salazar’s mission to advance pediatric health care for all children
An internationally recognized pediatric infectious diseases specialist and investigator, Salazar brings decades of leadership and experience to Vanderbilt Health.
Big Sky Democrats Battle Over ‘Poison’ Brand
Montana Democrats thought they found a novel way to win control of the U.S. Senate—until the party faithful started fighting back.
Ben McAdams leads fundraising race for Utah’s new, blue congressional district by nearly $1M
Democrats have flocked to run in Utah's new 1st Congressional District race. Here's how much money they've raised so far.
The surprising origin of 4 features that superglue kids — and adults
Taken together, these four features can create a trancelike state that can keep us stuck on social media apps or video games for hours. Children are particularly vulnerable.
Fremont Street Experience to host free Cinco de Mayo entertainment
All three stages will feature nonstop performances from noon to 2 a.m.
NBA playoffs 2026: LeBron James and the Lakers turning back the clock? 1 defining stat for each series so far
Braves at Phillies series recap: A sweeping statement
The Braves are currently firing on all cylinders while their divisional foes are spinning their wheels.
A.J. Brown likely to be traded to Patriots
A new report from Adam Schefter has Brown on the move.
Lawsuit filed against Lexington massage business after employee charged with sexual abuse
A lawsuit was filed against a Lexington massage parlor after an employee allegedly sexually abused a customer during an appointment.
WVU announces recipients of 2025-26 Benedum Distinguished Scholar Awards
Three outstanding faculty members have been selected as the 2025-26 Benedum Distinguished Scholars in recognition of their exceptional research and scholarly activity.
20 years later, Nintendo's weird RPG Mother 3 remains the greatest game never sold
Mother 3, the sequel to Earthbound, came out 20 years ago today--but not in America, where it's never been released.
2026 NL Central Power Rankings: Week 4
Crew bounces back but faces tough competition in deep NL Central
Space Force weighs Vulcan flights without solid boosters
Space Force weighs Vulcan flights without solid boosters Space Force weighs Vulcan flights without solid boosters
Luxury Brands Bet on the Middle East. War Has Damaged Their Plans.
High-end brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès are looking to other regions as sales in Persian Gulf nations plummet.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider bats away pitcher's complaints about opener: 'Above his pay grade'
Keweenaw Support 4 Healthy Minds holds 3rd annual Youth Mental Health Fair
Teens were invited to the 3rd annual Keweenaw Support 4 Healthy Minds mental health fair Saturday afternoon to learn how to cope with stress.
Science Central hosts World Art Day celebration
World Art Day is April 15. The global observation celebrates culture, creativity, and artistic expression worldwide.
Pragmata works because it isn't a "sad dad" game
Despite appearances, Pragmata isn't a "sad dad" game, but an example of upbeat, non-toxic masculinity. It's more like a dad cab game.
SF Department of Public Health confirms first clade I mpox case
The San Francisco Department of Public Health on Tuesday confirmed the first case of clade 1 mpox in a city resident.
Hackers are abusing unpatched Windows security flaws to hack into organizations
A security researcher published details of three security vulnerabilities in Windows Defender, and the code used to exploit them. Now, hackers are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities in real life attacks, according to a cybersecurity firm.
X-Men's 'Avengers: Doomsday' return is 'opportunity to pit multiple universes against each other' (exclusive)
The X-Men in 'Avengers: Doomsday' became 'an amazing opportunity to pit multiple universes against each other,' Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige tells EW at CinemaCon. 'I think people know that the story of Doomsday is inspired by a very famous comic run in which universes are colliding.'
On the Move Spotlight: Dr. Eric Dreibelbeis
What initially sparked your interest in your current field or industry?I started my medical career as a hospitalist, helping care for some of the sickest individuals in the community when they were at their most vulnerable. I met patients in the ER and took care of them until they were well enough to leave the…
Sports Illustrated Resorts brand expands to Louisiana college town
Developers will convert a Hilton hotel in Baton Rouge under the lifestyle brand amid Sports Illustrated Resorts’ expansion into premier sports-driven college and university markets.
Microsoft Defender 0-Day Vulnerability “RedSun” Enables Full SYSTEM Access
A researcher known as “Chaotic Eclipse” released a PoC exploit for a Microsoft Defender zero-day, “RedSun,” on GitHub.
New Chair of Quietly Powerful Multnomah County Health Board Ousted
Chambers said she did not think her removal was reasonable, though she acknowledged that the matter was still raw. She also acknowledged there is a bigger story here.
Venture capitalist and former marine Larry Lawrence, GS ’69, Business ’71, named School of General Studies 2026 Class Day speaker
Larry Lawrence, GS ’69, Business ’71, venture capitalist, chair emeritus of the School of General Studies’ board of visitors, will serve as the General Studies Class Day speaker for the class of 2026, General Studies Dean Lisa Rosen-Metsch, GS/JTS ’90, announced in a Thursday email to the school’s students.
2026 NFL Draft final combined big board: Buckeyes defender is No. 1, with Fernando Mendoza right behind him and Rueben Bain Jr. top-5
“Victor Wembanyama thoroughly embodies the spirit of …
“Victor Wembanyama thoroughly embodies the spirit of …
Northern Ireland Minister of Health visits Vanderbilt Health
Mike Nesbitt, Health Minister of Northern Ireland, talked with Vanderbilt Health leaders about innovation and community-based health care.
Protecting kids from deceptive and unsubstantiated health claims: the FTC’s case against TruHeight
Parents and kids (like all consumers) need clear, truthful information to make informed decisions — especially when those decisions affect their children’s health and physical safety. With that in mind, the FTC is working to protect kids and teens from deceptive health claims. Take the Agency’s recent case: the FTC charged Vanilla Chip LLC, which does business as TruHeight, with using unsubstantiated health claims and fake or incentivized reviews to market its supplements to kids, teenagers, and caregivers.
The UK Remains Vulnerable to Political Risk
The UK economy started 2026 in better shape than feared. But Iran and domestic political risks loom large.
Booster the Rooster welcomes Vanderbilt Clarksville Hospital staff to Vanderbilt Health: photo gallery
Vanderbilt Health acquired Vanderbilt Clarksville Hospital on Feb. 2.
Four things to watch as RFK Jr. defends his health agenda on the Hill
Vaccines and turmoil at the agencies under his leadership are expected to be hot topics.
Angry researcher drops second Windows Defender zero-day exploit: “They mopped the floor with me”
A disgruntled researcher released a second zero-day Windows Defender exploit, dubbed RedSun, shortly after Microsoft patched the first vulnerability.
Deadline Hollywood
CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach explains why they went with 'NCIS: New York' and did not consider picking up 'Tony & Ziva' for next season. Read more below.
Today’s Papers – Allegri’s frosty relationship with Milan, Yildiz’s knee problems
La Gazzetta dello SportRoma tension, Ranieri could even leaveGasp wants full trustInter, Bastoni takes a breakChivu changes; the defender is tired and will miss Cagliari.Devil of a nineJuve slow down,...
How Dangerous Is Anthropic’s New AI Model? Its Chief Science Officer Explains.
Just how fast is the future coming at us, and how worried should we be? Last week, Anthropic announced Claude Mythos, the latest in what has become the leading family of AI models. In a very short time, AI models from Anthropic and other companies have become shockingly powerful at coding. But Mythos stands out because it is not just able to write code that can hack into critical systems, like those that run financial companies, but also to analyze systems and find and string together vulnerabilities in them, allowing Mythos to evade even sophisticated defenses. Anthropic chose to release Mythos to only about 40 leading corporations, so they could analyze the model’s capabilities and prepare countermeasures, in an effort it calls Project Glasswing. The release of Mythos—and the prospect of similarly powerful AIs to follow—has caused tremors at the top levels of Washington and corporate America. Jared Kaplan, co-founder and chief science officer at Anthropic, is at the center of this breakthrough. We sat down with Kaplan so he could walk us through just how powerful Mythos is, what the implications are for issues like our personal privacy, and what comes next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Sean Fischer: For the layman, how is Claude Mythos different—more powerful, more dangerous—from previous models released by Anthropic? Jared Kaplan: I think most people have experienced the fact that our computers get faster and faster over time and over many decades. There’s this very smooth trend where every 18 months, maybe, computer processing power doubles. I think AI is on a trend in which it’s improving maybe 10 times faster than that. A lot of the earliest work that I did in AI was around identifying this scaling trend in AI. Claude Mythos is the latest model from Anthropic, but it’s not different because it’s qualitatively different. It’s really just kind of the culmination of the trend of AI models getting smarter and smarter at all kinds of general capabilities, from reasoning to software engineering to scientific research to knowledge work. For us, it was the first model to demonstrate very elite-level cybersecurity capabilities. It wasn’t because we trained Claude Mythos to focus on cybersecurity, but it was because, as a byproduct of its general intelligence and its general ability with software, it’s particularly good at identifying vulnerabilities in software and how to exploit them.
Is Starbucks breaking up with Seattle?
Starbucks' big new office in Nashville, and its interest in a Bellevue office last year, have revived questions about the future of one of Seattle's most Seattle brands.
Building health together: Clarksville community leadership luncheon
Vanderbilt Clarksville Hospital’s mission is to strengthen and expand local access to health care and improve the overall health of the community.
Vermont high school sports scores, results, stats for Wednesday, April 15
Vermont high school sports scores and results as reported to the Burlington Free Press sports department.
CISA flags Windows Task Host vulnerability as exploited in attacks
CISA warned U.S. government agencies to secure their systems against a Windows Task Host privilege escalation vulnerability that could allow attackers to gain SYSTEM privileges.
NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue Unveils Five New Orthopedic Surgical Tables to Enhance Patient Care and Safety - NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue today unveiled five new orthopedic surgical tables following a $500,000 internal investment, advancing patient safety,
Barnett College of Public Health senior is #TempleMade for a career in healthcare advocacy
After graduating in May, India Byrd will pursue a master of health administration at the Fox School of Business. She aims to work both hands-on with patients and on the operational side of a hospital, improving systems and advocating for better healthcare access and outcomes.
Wisconsin Badgers mourn loss of longtime assistant coach Henry Mason
Wisconsin football community remembers Henry Mason, a key figure in Badgers football history and player development.
How Eric Swalwell rose to the top of Democratic politics as rumors followed him
Allies like Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Ruben Gallego say they knew nothing about the misconduct allegations, with Gallego saying the congressman led a “double life.”
Microsoft Issues Patches for SharePoint Zero-Day and 168 Other Vulnerabilities
Microsoft fixes 169 vulnerabilities including exploited SharePoint CVE-2026-32201, prompting CISA remediation by April 28, 2026.
Microsoft April 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 167 flaws, 2 zero-days
Today is Microsoft's April 2026 Patch Tuesday with security updates for 167 flaws, including 2 zero-day vulnerabilities.
Eagles leak wild theory that could signal A.J. Brown trade
A.J. Brown trade rumors are not going away
Apple TV and Peacock Premium Plus streaming bundle now available on Prime Video in the US for $19.99 per month
Available for a limited time, the streaming bundle brings together Apple TV’s original series and films and Peacock’s live sports, hit shows, movies, and live content.
Judge temporarily allows women, minority-owned businesses to qualify for Texas HUB program again
Las Vegas neon sign company celebrates nearly 100 years of family business
YESCO has shaped the Las Vegas skyline since the 1920s, from the iconic Welcome sign to the Sphere.
Register for 25Live training at Health Sciences Center
The Facilities Planning and Scheduling team will provide a 25Live training session from 2-3 p.m. on May 8 at the Health Sciences Center.
The Pixel 10 is getting a major security boost you'll never actually see
Google is bringing memory-safe Rust code to the Pixel 10 modem to protect users from remote hacking and memory-safety vulnerabilities.
Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 21 takes on Adobe Lightroom with a new Photo page
Many creators are now using DaVinci Resolve instead of Adobe Premiere, and now Blackmagic Design is going after Photoshop.
iPhone Fold Production Pushed Back, But Fall 2026 Launch Still on Track
Production on the iPhone Fold is behind schedule, but the device is still slated to launch in fall 2026, reports DigiTimes. The site says that production has been pushed back by "roughly one to two months," but Apple has not communicated any launch delays to suppliers. Apple is still planning for a 2026 launch, which suggests a tighter production schedule. Apple planned to begin iPhone Fold mass production in June 2026, but mass production has now slipped to early August.
1% Better with The Science of Gratitude & Why It Works
Executive Director and Motivational Speaker Rich Bracken joins Shane and Kerrigan to share the science behind gratitude.
'View' stars slam Donald Trump sharing image of himself as Jesus: 'Blasphemous'
'The View' star Sunny Hostin called for the use of the 25th amendment after Donald Trump shared image of himself as Jesus: 'God is not to be mocked,' added former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Artificial sweeteners: Why the science war is raging on
Conflicting studies on artificial sweeteners are fuelling fresh debate across food and drink, as health risks, regulation and reformulation collide worldwide.
Why does déjà vu happen, and can science explain it?
Learning with TOI News: You’re walking into a place you’ve never been to before. And yet, for a fleeting moment, it feels known. Not vaguely familiar, but specific, like a me.
Seth Cohen on Accelerating AI Adoption for Lasting Business Impact
P&G’s Chief Information Officer Seth Cohen took the stage at Human[X] to share how companies can leverage AI to drive real, measurable impact across their business.
Dolce & Gabbana Appoints Stefano Cantino as Co-CEO
The recruitment of the former Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada executive follows the resignation of Stefano Gabbana as chairman in December.
U.S. Small Business Administration Offers Relief to Colorado Small Businesses and Private Nonprofits Affected by Drought
The U.S. Small Business Administration announces the availability of low-interest federal disaster loans to offset economic loss caused by drought.
Sports tournament benefiting South Austin family impacted by fire rescheduled due to rainy weather
Player Grades: Cavs vs Wizards – Tyrese Proctor ends strong
Proctor helped the Cavs finish the season strong.
Victor Wembanyama will miss regular season finale against Denver
Victor Wembanyama will miss regular season finale against Denver
Samsung Confirms Upgrade Offer—Galaxy Owners Must Now Decide
Millions of Samsung phones are vulnerable to attack — you must act now.
Health expert explains link between women's hormones, stress - and what to do about it
In honor of National Stress Awareness Month, health experts are drawing attention to the internal physiological shifts that contribute to rising stress levels in women, specifically menopause and perimenopause.
In a surprise move, Capcom now lets you buy the original Resident Evil games
Capcom recently re-released the original three Resident Evil games on Steam, and hopefully, it isn't a fluke.
Volcanic Ash: Voters running for cover as the political f-bombs fly
Who knew Hawaii U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono was a trendsetter during the first Trump administration when she started conducting political discourse in vulgar language that almost got her mouth washed out with soap?
White Sox Minor League Update: April 11, 2026
Bham walks it off to bring home the only win in the system
Flyers Postgame Blog: Statement Win; Vladar Bounces Back; Vintage Couturier
The Philadelphia Flyers made a statement on Saturday. It was a dominating 7-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets that lowered […] The post Flyers Postgame Blog: Statement Win; Vladar Bounces Back; Vintage Couturier appeared first on Philly Hockey Now.
Saturday Sports: The first Watertown girls’ flag football game and more
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Saturday.
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Babies too young for MMR vaccine become ‘sitting ducks’ in measles outbreaks
Babies too young to be vaccinated are among the most vulnerable in a measles outbreak and depend entirely on herd immunity.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Samsung Confirms Upgrade Offer—Galaxy Users Must Now Decide
Millions of Samsung phones are vulnerable to attack — you must act now.
King County confirms measles case in infant; exposure risk in Bellevue and Seattle low
Public Health – Seattle & King County is warning of potential measles exposures in Bellevue, northeast Seattle, and on public transit after confirming a case in
Dick Vitale releases update on latest health battle: 'Hope & pray for good results'
Legendary college basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale shared an update on his latest health battle. Here's what he said.
Oregon Health Authority says tattoo artists can’t use topical numbing creams, sprays
The Health Licensing Office issued a practice clarification affecting all tattoo artists in Oregon, stating that the use of topical anesthetics is prohibited and always has been.
The Sonic Paradox: Do we, in fact, gotta go fast?
The human mind simply can't process super-speed, but the game Haste does it better than the famously fast Sonic The Hedgehog games.
Meet the air traffic controller behind the PGA Championship
Jackie Endsley tapped her honorary Philadelphian standing after the PGA Championship lost its first director.
Multiple Sixers discuss losing Joel Embiid to appendicitis surgery
Multiple members of the Philadelphia 76ers discuss losing Joel Embiid to his appendicitis surgery.
Fuel price impacts felt by truckers, small businesses as inflation's grip tightens
The impact of the war in Iran is still being felt in the Bay Area, whether its at the pump or the Port of Oakland. Some industries are being hit harder than most.
Silver State Sports LIVE
Catch the Silver State Sports & Entertainment Network (SSSEN) over the air on 5.2, COX 77, YouTubeTV, and Fubo.
LeBron James dunks right behind KTVU sports reporter Bailey O'Carroll
It's all eyes on Lakers LeBron James ahead of the Warriors final home game of the regular season. While warming up with some free throws ahead of their game with the Warriors, LeBron James decides to dunk, nearly taking out our sports reporter!
AMPLIFIED: New era for ‘Sports and Entertainment Capital of the World’?
The Raiders will keep star edge rusher Maxx Crosby after a trade to Baltimore fell through.
Iran war tests Trump’s most enduring political gifts
The Iran war is ending. Or so the White House says. The last-minute ceasefire this week in a conflict that has convulsed capitals from Washington to Brussels to Tehran has left several key issues up in the air. What does it mean politically? And will it last?
Can AI dream of electric sheep? The team behind the award-winning 1000XResist on their next game
We talked with Remy Siu, the Creative Director behind the award-winning 1000XResist, about their upcoming AI-centric game.
Victor Wembanyama's extreme ceiling: How end-of-season awards voting could be an indicator of historic success
US software stocks fall as Anthropic's new AI model revives disruption fears
U.S. software shares tumbled on Thursday after Anthropic held back the wide release of a powerful AI model over concerns it could expose hidden cybersecurity vulnerabilities, deepening investor fears about the threat to traditional software firms.