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An Imperial Week in Photos: Celebrating Global Achievements in Science
Among the Imperial Family's mid-April engagements was the Japan Prize ceremony, which honored laureates for advancing science for peace and prosperity.
Lilleana Cavanaugh Champions Women and Minority Business Owners
Lilleana Cavanaugh is among our 2026 Inspiring Women for her work championing growth at the state’s Minority Business Development Division.
'Drag Race' AS8 winner Jimbo reacts to airplane evacuation, reported bomb scare (exclusive)
'RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 8' winner Jimbo was among passengers evacuated from a United flight that was diverted amid a reported bomb scare: 'Everyone thought we were dying,' Jimbo tells EW.
Teladoc Health Inc (TDOC): AI Push Amid Share BuyBack Calls
Teladoc Health Inc (NYSE:TDOC) is among the best medical AI stocks to buy now. On March 31, activist investor Pineal Capital Management urged Teladoc to launch a share repurchase program. Pineal Capital is pushing for at least $200 million in share buybacks. Additionally, the activist investor has called on the Teladoc management to consider separating […]
33 years after the crash, there’s still plenty to miss about Mickelson and his brand of politics
Just as journalism has felt the effects of time, so have politics and politicians. Gov. Mickelson was, after all, literally a giant among elected officials.
Business Notes for April 19, 2026
The Gazette’s Business Notes is a compendium of the week’s promotions, new hires, certifications, added business lines and business events, among other items, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and the
Senedd election: Low awareness among young people ahead of May vote
Five years after giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, youth engagement in politics remains low.
Curing U.S. Health Care, Part I
In 2008, much to their own surprise, leading Democrats unified around a program of major health care reform. Policy wonks had spent years developing the concepts behind what eventually became Obamacare; big Democratic victories in the 2006 midterms and the prospect of controlling both Congress and the presidency made it possible to imagine turning those ideas into reality. During the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advocated similar plans, based on those ideas, for expanding insurance coverage. And it happened! The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. When it was fully implemented in 2014, millions of Americans got health insurance: Impressive as the raw numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story. Before the ACA, even upper-middle-class Americans often found it impossible to get health insurance if they had pre-existing medical conditions. Many Americans were trapped in jobs they wanted to leave but couldn’t for fear of losing their employment-based coverage. Meanwhile, dire predictions from the usual suspects about runaway costs proved wrong. In fact, overall U.S. medical spending has grown much more slowly since the ACA was enacted than before. But the U.S., alone among advanced nations, still falls far short of providing universal health care. As you can see from the chart above, 8 percent of the population was still uninsured in 2024, a number that is set to rise over the next two years as a result of Republican policies. True, many of the uninsured in 2024 were undocumented immigrants, who we don’t try to cover. But there are still a lot of uninsured. Moreover, a significant number of Americans who have health insurance are in fact underinsured. As a result, they are at risk of incurring devastating healthcare costs and are sometimes forced to forgo needed care. This number is set to rise sharply in the next two years as a result of Republican policies adopted under Donald Trump. And not only is the U.S. unique among advanced countries in its under-provision of health care coverage, it also incurs by far the world’s highest healthcare costs per capita. So now may well be a good time to get behind a new push for major health reform — an effort, if you like, to finish the job begun under Obama. Today’s primer is devoted to the economics of health reform. During his failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump famously complained, “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Actually, we did know — and it’s not that complicated. Health economists understand the principles very well. And because health policy varies greatly among advanced nations, we know a lot about what works and what doesn’t. This will be the first in a series about health reform. Beyond the paywall I’ll address the following: 1. Why markets can’t be trusted to deliver healthcare 2. Routes to universal healthcare 3. What works? In a follow-up post I’ll discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and possible paths forward for the United States.
Braylon Mullins is back: UConn G whose epic 3-pointer beat Duke in Elite Eight returning for sophomore season
Dan Hurley keeps another key piece, which should again give UConn a chance to be among college basketball's best teams
Sunbirds suck, scientists find. Hummingbirds don’t.
Two unrelated groups of nectar eaters, hummingbirds and sunbirds, evolved different techniques to slurp the sweet liquid from flowers. The tongue suctioning employed by sunbirds is unique among
Savannah named among Top 12 U.S. cities to watch on environmental health
Savannah has been named one of 12 cities to watch on environmental health through a national initiative recognizing work on extreme heat, air quality and infrastructure.
Trump taps Texas’ top public health official as CDC chief medical officer
Jennifer Shuford, an infectious disease physician who oversaw the country’s largest measles outbreak in 30 years, is among a slate of CDC nominations with no apparent ties to the anti-vaccine movement.
Trump taps Texas’ top public health official as CDC chief medical officer
Jennifer Shuford, an infectious disease physician who oversaw the country’s largest measles outbreak in 30 years, is among a slate of CDC nominations with no apparent ties to the anti-vaccine movement.
Maya Tea steeps into the mocktail business
The longtime Tucson tea company just released a line of zero-alcohol spirits, joining a growing trend that's found popularity among Gen Z'ers.
Local schools tie Artemis II into science lessons
Solar flare drill, moon rock construction among projects
Fan Letters: Sunderland’s ‘Legends’ Way’ Continues To Divide Opinion!
Almost one week on, and the recipients of memorial stones are still causing plenty of debate among RR’s readers…
NBA playoffs 2026: Can the underdog Lakers find a path to success against the Rockets?
The Lakers are among a few plucky underdogs who can perhaps make some noise in the first round.
Three downtown Mansfield businesses vandalized overnight
The 101 Tea Company was among three downtown businesses with smashed glass doors Friday morning.
College of Public Health Collaborates with Arkansas Cancer Coalition
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health conducts cancer research throughout the state. Its partnership with the Arkansas Cancer Coalition is among the reasons why it has such a wide footprint. “It matters that we work with the community on common goals,”…
Global Leftist Leaders Gather in Spain to Counter Far-Right Surge
The meetings in Spain among leftist leaders reflect concerns among left-wing leaders following the rise of far-right parties in recent years.
Glenwood Park businesses, residents optimistic over new Beltline expansion
The latest Beltline expansion is sparking hope among Glenwood Park residents and business owners, who anticipate what new opportunities it could bring.
Johnny Gaudreau among Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame's Class of 2026
The late hockey star and South Jersey native Johnny Gaudreau will be among the athletes inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2026.
Trump taps former public health leader Erica Schwartz to run CDC
Schwartz's background as a physician with plenty of government service experience will likely be popular among lawmakers.
Survey Shows Widespread Use of Apps and Chatbots for Mental Health Support
A survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center highlights growing use of digital and AI-powered tools for mental health, with strong adoption among younger adults and key access gaps in rural communities.
Dallas County GOP Chair Allen West resigns amid push for his removal
His resignation comes after he made a controversial decision among his party to return to countywide voting for the May 26 runoff.
Raskin v Moore: what do the stats say?
Midfielder Nicolas Raskin and on-loan Tottenham winger Mikey Moore have split opinion among fans over who should be Rangers player of the year. Raskin, who was phased out under previous boss Russell Martin, has become a key player in Danny Rohl's team as Rangers continue their push for the league title. Moore, at just 18 years old, has also been impressing since joining on a temporary spell from the English Premier League outfit.
Sesame Street, Science Fest, Holloman Airshow among things to do
El Paso offers a variety of events this week, from Sesame Street and UTEP Bhutanese celebration to a science fest and airshow.
Iowa Senate approves bill to tighten high school sports transfer eligibility
A bill aimed at restricting transfers among high school student-athletes is one step closer to becoming law in Iowa.
Seeing women govern encourages support for women in politics – with no apparent backlash among men
After the main Namibian party started alternating candidates between men and women, female representation in the National Assembly nearly doubled.
Leadership styles vary among local champions
Mark Hughes Cobb reflects on local leadership styles in football, Mercedes, art and music.
FDA to weigh easing limits on unproven peptides favored by RFK Jr. and MAHA supporters
The Food and Drug Administration will hold a meeting this summer to consider easing restrictions on more than a half dozen peptide injections, a group of unapproved therapies that have become popular among wellness influencers, fitness gurus and celebrities.
Guarini to launch computational science Ph.D. program
The program will foster “collaboration among faculty from different disciplines,” according to Guarini dean Jon Kull ’88.
Houston midwife says access to care, systemic racism drive Black maternal deaths; urges prenatal visits
A certified nurse midwife with Ben Taub Hospital says barriers to basic health care along with systemic racism continue to fuel disproportionate maternal deaths among Black women in Harris County, even as Houston sits in the shadow of one of the world’s largest medical centers.
Supporting students before, during, and after mental health crisis
Nationally, suicide remains one of the leading causes of death among college-aged young adults.
Fantasy Basketball: LeBron James, Jalen Duren among notable free agents
In addition to actual free agents, some player option situations will significantly affect fantasy basketball this summer.
UT Health Sciences Nursing Professor to Enter International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame
A UT Health Sciences College of Nursing professor is among 26 nurse researchers who will be inducted into the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.
Scientists Stunned: A Giant Sea Creature Still Hides Unseen in the Ocean - Futura-Sciences
The Elusive Ghost of the Depths In the vast expanse of the world’s oceans, some species still manage to escape the all-seeing gaze of humankind. Among these slippery escape artists, one creature in particular consistently evades every scientific effort to observe it. In fact, scientists have never witnessed a single...
FDA to Weigh Easing Limits on Unproven Peptides Favored by RFK Jr. and Other MAHA Figures
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration will hold a meeting this summer to consider easing restrictions on more than a half dozen peptide injections, a group of unapproved therapies that have become popular among wellness influencers, fitness gurus and celebrities. The meeting ...
Anta Sports: Sporting Goods in China Remains a Challenge
A delay in the recovery of confidence among the Chinese mass-market base fuels the challenges in the sporting goods category, impacting Anta and Nike.
Study finds no link between medical gender reassignment and improved mental health among young people
An extensive register-based study conducted in Finland has found an increase in severe mental health problems among some adolescents and young adults who have undergone medical gender reassignment (GR). ...
WTOV9 Senior Expo scores big with turnout at The Highlands Sports Complex
The 5th WTOV9 Senior Expo proved to be another success on Tuesday.More than 50 vendors welcomed north of 1,000 people at The Highlands Sports Complex.Among many
Postal Service union launches ad campaign promoting mail voting as Trump seeks to limit it
The 30-second message features a variety of voters, among them a busy farmer and a flight attendant, explaining why they cast their ballots by mail.
Simon Cherry Receives ESMI Award for Significant, Long-Term Contributions to Imaging Science
The Distinguished Research Professor of biomedical engineering has received the 2026 ESMI Award from the European Society for Molecular Imaging. Among the most prestigious honors in imaging science, the award celebrates a researcher for their outstanding contributions to the interdisciplinary field.
Where Columbus Blue Jackets' playoff drought ranks among pro sports
The Columbus Blue Jackets missed the NHL playoffs for a sixth straight year. See where their drought ranks in the NHL and North American sports.
Pool Scouts Owner Wins SBA Alabama Veteran-Owned Small Business of the Year Award
Pool Scouts of Huntsville owner, among other SBA winners, will be recognized during the National Small Business Week for their significant work within the greater Alabama business community.
Final tour for Alabama stops in Cedar Rapids
Alabama, a band that marries country with Southern rock, was among the most successful acts of the '80s. Known for hits like "Tennessee River," they will perform on Sunday at the Alliant Energy PowerHouse.
How Do Bigfoot Hunters Use Scientific Evidence? We Asked Two Sociologists Who Have Spent Years Among The Bigfooters
Bigfooting is a specific activity within the Bigfoot believer communities. Rather than being antagonistic to science, they mobilize science-like activities to support their views.
Dozens arrested as protesters urge Schumer, Gillibrand block bomb sale to Israel
Among the 90 people taken into custody were whistleblower Chelsea Manning, actor Hari Nef and New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés, according to a JVP spokesperson.
Online Sports Betting Is Fueling Financial Risk in Florida
Experts warn that permissive policies and app-based betting are accelerating addiction, especially among young men.
Diana Taurasi, J.J. Hardy among seven Arizona Sports Hall of Fame inductees
Diana Taurasi, J.J. Hardy and Frank Busch were among seven inductees to the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame in recognition of their impact on Arizona’s sports legacy.
Scientists decode the dynamic heart of elephant grass chromosomes
Centromeres act as the control centers of chromosomes, ensuring accurate genetic inheritance during cell division, yet they remain among the least understood genomic regions due to their repetitive structure.
Club Sports strengthens community among Clemson students
While Clemson University promotes a wide range of activities to encourage on-campus engagement, almost one sixth of its student population is drawn to one
Masters 2026: Only one question remains for Rory McIlroy — how high will he climb among golf's all-time greats?
McIlroy may never have the numbers to catch Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods, but he certainly has a pathway to No. 3 all-time.
Jim Cramer on D-Wave (QBTS): “Maybe the Science Project Works Out, But It Is More of a Science Project”
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE:QBTS) is among the stocks Jim Cramer discussed alongside the tech market divide. A caller asked if Cramer thinks companies like D-Wave Quantum are positioned to rebound. In response, Cramer commented: Well, I think it’s more of a, candidly, it’s more of a science project, which I don’t mean, you know, look, […]
EDITORIAL: Business HQs decamp from Colorado
Grim news last week: For the first time since the pandemic, Colorado’s job market lost 11,700 jobs — contracting at an annual rate of -0.4%. The Centennial State is among 27 states with year-over-year job losses, but a new report from the Colorado Chamber Foundation indicates Colorado-specific trends are at play. And they’re making things […]
EDITORIAL: Business HQs decamp from Colorado
Grim news last week: For the first time since the pandemic, Colorado’s job market lost 11,700 jobs — contracting at an annual rate of -0.4%. The Centennial State is among 27 states with year-over-year job losses, but a new report from the Colorado Chamber Foundation indicates Colorado-specific trends are at play. And they’re making things […]
Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston and Paddington Bear are up for prizes at London's Olivier Awards
Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston and Paddington Bear are among the stars up for prizes at London’s Olivier Awards on Sunday | KCBS All News 106.9FM and 740AM
Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston and Paddington Bear are up for prizes at London's Olivier Awards
Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston and Paddington Bear are among the stars up for prizes at London’s Olivier Awards on Sunday | 830 WCCO
Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston and Paddington Bear are up for prizes at London's Olivier Awards
Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston and Paddington Bear are among the stars up for prizes at London’s Olivier Awards on Sunday.
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.
Entertainment venues keep packing Fresno-area calendar. 10 (more) shows to watch
Among a slew of announcements, Broadway in Fresno put out its next lineup: We’re getting the Neil Diamond musical and a return of “Jersey Boys.”
Entertainment venues keep packing Fresno-area calendar. 10 (more) shows to watch
Among a slew of announcements, Broadway in Fresno put out its next lineup: We’re getting the Neil Diamond musical and a return of “Jersey Boys.”
“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.
High school sports a big focus
Sports reporter Brian Calloway is among the busiest people at the LSJ almost anytime of the year. That's especially true this time of year.
High school sports a big focus
Sports reporter Brian Calloway is among the busiest people at the LSJ almost anytime of the year. That's especially true this time of year.
For aging Supreme Court justices, the politics of retirement looms large
Discussion among experts about a possible Supreme Court vacancy has increased as two men draw closer to the average age of retirement for Supreme Court justices since 2000 and with the November congressional elections looming.
College football's most experienced players in 2026: Penn State's Rocco Becht leads among QBs
As eligibility stretches careers, snap counts provide a clearer look at which players have truly logged the most time on the field
How Political Differences Can Affect Golf Players Concentration on the Links and Beyond
A new study suggests political differences among golfers can affect concentration on the links—and perhaps in the workplace as well.
Andrej Karpathy says there's a 'growing gap' among AI users
Ex-Tesla AI director and OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy wrote that AI power users and skeptics are "speaking past each other."
Climate change is outpacing evolution. Scientists are using DNA to catch up
Coral reefs are among the first ecosystems where these tools are being put to use.
Car Keys in Apple Wallet coming soon to major new vehicle brand
Apple Wallet’s car key feature is building momentum among automakers, and now we can add another “coming soon” brand to that list: Lexus.
Personnel note: Eric Ludin tapped as Of Counsel for Shumaker's St. Pete office
Ludin is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Mediator, making him a commodity among other lawyers to resolve client disputes.
Sioux Falls ranks among top Midwest tech metros
Sioux Falls took a big jump in an annual ranking of the best Midwest metros for tech workers.
Microsoft Starts Removing Copilot from Notepad, Snipping Tool, and More in Windows 11
Microsoft's Copilot AI has generated significant negative sentiment among Windows 11 users, to the extent that even Microsoft has recognized the need to scale back some of the Copilot functionality it has long promoted. According to Windows Latest, Microsoft has updated core Windows applications suc...
Legislators, behavioral health professionals discuss Westmoreland County mental health goals, challenges
Legislators and behavioral health professionals will discuss the mental health challenges and priorities among Westmoreland County residents Friday. The fourth annual mental health legislative breakfast, held at the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit, is a partnership between Westmoreland County Commissioner Doug Chew, Mental Health America of Southwestern Pennsylvania and Adelphoi. This year’s
The week that supercharged MAGA media feuds over the Iran war
The right-wing media ecosystem that has long served as a useful bullhorn for President Donald Trump unraveled into disarray this week, as deepening fears over his management of the war — and fragile ceasefire — with Iran spilled into public infighting among some of his most prominent allies.
NY ranks among best states for children's health
A new study ranks New York among the top states for children's health care. See how it scored.
20 years after passing nation-leading health care law, Mass. braces for new challenges
A landmark health coverage law passed 20 years ago gave Massachusetts among the lowest uninsured rates in the country. It inspired the sweeping federal overhaul known as the Affordable Care Act. Now many are wondering whether that period of intense negotiations and compromise offers lessons for today's urgent health care challenges.
Eureka! Flathead Valley students have their moment at state science fair
Flathead Valley students displayed their fortitude for the scientific method at the Montana Science Fair with Kalispell Montessori School bringing home the first-place Division II trophy for its outstanding performance among small middle schools.
Wilson Sonsini Honored Among Boston Business Journal’s 2026 Best Places to Work
On April 8, 2026, Wilson Sonsini was honored among Boston Business Journal's "Best Places to Work" for the third consecutive year. The exclusive ranking celebrates Massachusetts companies that have…
Google Pixel 11 reportedly gets Samsung’s new flagship display ahead of iPhone
According to a new report, Google’s upcoming Pixel 11 series will be among the first – perhaps even the first...
National champion running back among Patriots’ latest pre-draft visits
The Patriots’ list of reported pre-draft visits is now up to 17.
Advantage Liverpool? Reds battle Bayern in race for £35m attacker
Liverpool are among the clubs showing strong interest in signing Hoffenheim winger Bazoumana Toure during the summer transfer window.The Reds are expected to strengthen their attacking options after a...
Popular Scottsdale sports grill, Chandler sushi spot cited by health inspectors
Four East Valley restaurants, including a popular sports grill, and a West Valley taco spot were among places cited by health inspectors in this week's Dirty Dining report.
Which U.S. metros have the highest health spending? The answer might surprise you
There's not a consistent theme among the 10 highest and lowest spending metros, which highlights the “irrationality” of U.S. health care spending, experts say.
Forage 2026 | A balancing act: The science of silage
The discussion about what to feed beef cattle throughout the year is among the most important conversations for the operation. For many, silage is a consideration. Galen Erickson, Ph.D., Nebraska Cattle Industry Professor of Animal Science and Beef Feedlot Extension Specialist, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,...
Poll: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis loses support among Democrats
Gov. Jared Polis is losing steam among members of his party, particularly progressive Democrats, according to a recent poll. Other statewide Democrats also saw their favorability ratings drop, though relatively stable compared to the governor’s numbers, the poll conducted by the Colorado Polling Institute in late March said. Forty-four percent of respondents said they view […]
Kevin Hart and Jason Kelce are among the celebrity caddies at Augusta National's Par 3 Contest
Comedian Kevin Hart caddied for Bryson DeChambeau in the Par 3 Contest at Augusta National | Talk 1370
Kevin Hart and Jason Kelce are among the celebrity caddies at Augusta National's Par 3 Contest
Comedian Kevin Hart caddied for Bryson DeChambeau in the Par 3 Contest at Augusta National | KCBS All News 106.9FM and 740AM
Iran hawks seem to fear Trump will give Iran too much
Some aspects of the mostly unclear deal are raising alarms among hawkish Trump allies.
A first for Michigan's $2.4B SOAR business incentive program: New jobs
Michigan's $2.4 billion business incentive program has created 1,846 jobs among 10 companies, despite controversy.
Generations Of Damage: WHO Warns Of Middle East Health Collapse Amid Funding Shortfall
“The Middle East is among the most water-stressed regions globally. The Gulf hosts approximately 400 desalination plants producing 40% of the world's
Israeli strikes kill 89, wound 700 in Lebanon, health ministry says
A dozen medics are reportedly among those killed.
Israeli Strikes Kill 89, Wound 700 in Lebanon on Wednesday, Health Ministry Says
BEIRUT, April 8 (Reuters) - A spokseperson for Lebanon's health ministry told Reuters that Israel's strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday had killed "89 martyrs and wounded 700 people." The spokesperson said 12 medics were among the dead in southern Lebanon. (Reporting by Maya ...
UT Senior Named Among Nation’s Best Business Majors
UT Senior Tyler Porter has received national recognition as one of Poets&Quants 100 Best and Brightest Undergraduate Business Majors of 2026.
Metro Detroit small businesses weigh in on economy
Confidence is falling among small-business owners, per a recent national survey.
Jason Archer Chosen for Small Business Monthly’s Top 100 St. Louisans List
Award ceremony for recipients held on April 7 Jason Archer, vice president of business development at St. Louis Economic Development Partnership (STL Partnership), was among the group chosen in St.…
Losing Dexter Lawrence Would Make the Giants’ Defense Collapse
After years of contract issues, New York Giants superstar defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II has requested a trade. Lawrence’s disgruntledness doesn’t come as a surprise. Despite his All-Pro production, he ranks just 12th among NFL interior defensive linemen in terms of salary. So, with Lawrence’s established, elite production at 28 years old, the Giants shouldn’t hesitate […] The post Losing Dexter Lawrence Would Make the Giants’ Defense Collapse appeared first on The Lead.
SDSU public health programs, speech-language science rank among nation
Four top-25 programs include epidemiology and clinical psychology.