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Xbox has officially announced its Forza Horizon 6 wireless controller and headset
Both limited edition peripherals were leaked earlier this month…
Top Racers Need Top Gear – Introducing the Forza Horizon 6 Limited Edition Controller and Headset
Introducing the newest Limited Edition Xbox Wireless Controller and Wireless Headset collection, featuring inspired designs from Forza Horizon 6.
ID@Xbox Presented by IGN April 2026 Showcase Announced: Here's How to Watch and What to Expect
IGN is proud to partner once again with ID@Xbox for another exciting showcase on April 23, 2026, that will feature such indie games headed to Xbox and PC as Mistfall Hunter, There Are No Ghosts at the Grand, Aphelion, and Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive. Here's everything you need to know and how you can watch this showcase with us.
In The Lab: The Science of Slow Starts
Is there a scientific reason why the Astros seem to start slowly?
Coming to Xbox Game Pass: Kiln, Aphelion, Final Fantasy V, and More
What do Chocobos, space, vampires, and sentient pottery have in common? If it’s anything more than “themes of games you can play soon” we’d really like to know what kind of weird list that is.
Data center fight hits Georgia politics
Data centers have become a boxy, hulking flashpoint across Georgia and the nation heading into the midterms — and the backlash is spreading fast across red and blue states.
The data behind Delaware's ‘corporate exodus’ tells a different story
Despite Tesla, Dropbox and Coinbase leaving, the state captured a larger share of US business formation in 2024 than before Elon Musk told founders to flee — but there are early warning signs.
I found my dad's McDonald's collectibles. I decided to sell them.
Sarah Israel found boxes of her dad's McDonald's memorabilia from the '70s and '80s and is now selling most of the collection.
WA GOP leader says he has box of ballots found next to Renton dumpster
The United States Postal Inspection Service and the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office are investigating the ballots, which came to light on social media.
14 defaults I think are worth changing: Windows 11 feels modern, but many out‑of‑box settings push services, tracking, and clutter.
Windows 11 ships ready for cloud and recommendations; this guide shows the 14 default settings to change for better privacy, performance, and clarity.
This is the decades-old Gmail trick I still use every day
This small change completely cleans up your inbox
Xbox Game Pass Announces 3 Day One Games All Coming the Same Day
Xbox Game Pass has announced three day one games all coming on the same day, the biggest dump of day one games so far this year.
Xbox gets 30 new games next week
Next week, another 30 new Xbox games, including Vampire Crawlers and first-party Xbox title Kiln, launch across Xbox consoles and PC.
Xbox Players Can Soon Spend Microsoft Rewards Points on Console
Xbox users will soon be able to redeem Microsoft Rewards points directly on the console. Learn how it works and what it means for gamers.
AMC Entertainment price target raised to $2 from $1.50 at B. Riley
B. Riley raised the firm’s price target on AMC Entertainment (AMC) to $2 from $1.50 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. Industry box office revenue rose 22% year over year in the period, outperforming expectations and driven by strong releases in March, particularly Project Hail Mary, alongside solid contributions from Scream 7 and Hoppers, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Looking ahead to Q2, box office is expected to grow slightly, with gains in June offset by weaker April
“Looking into this” as Xbox’s new CEO steps in after an Insider update reportedly bricks a Series S and raises fresh concerns
A user part of the Xbox Insider Program claims a recent update bricked their Series S, prompting a direct response from CEO Asha Sharma.
These 30+ Games Are Coming To Xbox Next Week (April 20-24)
Including four more Game Pass additions!
All three Metro games discounted 90% on Xbox as Metro 2039 arrives this winter
With Metro 2039 coming later this year, now is the perfect time to pick up all previous Metro games, as they're currently on sale for cheap on Xbox.
Damaged boxwood plants? Try these alternatives
Box Tree Moths are affecting gardens throughout the state and country Last year these insects were spreading out of these communities more aggressively. When they invade the truly catch homeowners off guard.
Microsoft Expands Xbox Mode to Windows Laptops, PCs, and Tablets
We recently reported on Microsoft renaming the Xbox Full-Screen Experience to Xbox mode and subsequently updating the gaming UI with new display options for gaming handhelds. Most recently, though, Microsoft has announced that it will be bringing that console-like UI to more devices. Many of these d...
Intel eases reliance on TSMC with 'Merica-made Core Series 3 processors
: Stripped-down Ultra for laptops and low-power edge boxes
Pragmata Launch: Glowing Reviews and Chart-Topping Sales but Mediocre Player Counts
Pragmata has officially launched on Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series consoles after garnering a lot of hype leading up to its launch. The highly anticipated launch aside, though, it seems as though Pragmata's actual reception is a bit of a mixed bag. While the game has topped...
I went to Coachella and masqueraded as an influencer for 48 hours. Unfortunately, it was amazing.
Some people say the California music festival has lots its magic. Maybe it has, but it's still a spectacle.
Armed carjacker drives stolen Lexus into San Jose business: police
(KRON) — A man armed with a box cutter forcibly stole a car in East San Jose on Thursday and then drove it directly into a dental office, according to the San Jose Police Department. The inci…
Fortnite Loses Two Game Modes, But 'Save The World' Goes Free On Xbox & Beyond
Pro Vocals and Pro Drums have also joined Fortnite Festival
Asha Sharma Lays Out Plans For 'Deeper Investment' In Xbox's Platform Foundations
She's identified multiple areas of improvement
Sports quiz of the week: I Am Maximus, Marie-Louise Eta and Rory McIlroy
Did you follow the big stories in football, rugby, golf, baseball, basketball, boxing, snooker, cricket and racing?
Family business pivots to aid special needs child
Stephanie Chain pulls a fresh pair of disposable gloves from a box, snapping them onto her practiced hands. Gently, she lines up pieces of crispy toast in neat rows. Nearby,
Ari Shaffir brings back the storytelling show that launched comedy careers, but says this is 'The End'
Ari Shaffir brings back the storytelling show format that launched comedy careers with 'The End,' a seven-part series featuring 23 comedians sharing uncensored, real-life stories from the Box NYC.
EA Sports NHL 26 is Now on EA Play
EA Play members can run the rink with unlimited access to a revamped Be A Pro mode, HUT Season updates, and so much more.
Xbox First Look: Metro 2039 – Everything We Learned Today from This World Premiere Broadcast
Here’s everything we just learned about Metro 2039, the fourth entry and darkest chapter yet in 4A Games’ Metro saga.
Metro 2039 Is Coming To Xbox This Winter, Gorgeous In-Engine Gameplay Revealed
Welcome to the new world
A first look at Metro 2039 shows how its Ukrainian developer turned the darkness up to 11
Metro 2039 is scheduled to arrive this winter for Xbox, PlayStation 5 and PC.
Box office powerhouse Disney to show theater owners what’s next
The Walt Disney Co. is closing out CinemaCon on Thursday in Las Vegas. The company dominated the box office in 2025 with nearly $2.5 billion in domestic ticket sales. Hits like “Lilo & Stitch,”...
EVO Entertainment to Bring Dolby Vision+Atmos to EVX Auditoriums Across Texas, New Mexico and Florida
Dolby Laboratories has announced at CinemaCon that EVO Entertainment plans to equip its EVX Premium Large Format auditoriums with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. The rollout will begin with a 17-screen deployment across eight cinema entertainment centers in Texas, New Mexico, and Florida—many of which are newly built facilities designed from the ground up to […]
New Tomodachi Life Website Tools to Track and Inspire Your Miis
Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream has hit the physical and digital video game stores worldwide! The game is a perfect sandbox life simulator with many
Rumour: Red Dead Redemption May Be Getting A Rubbish 'Code-In-A-Box' Release
Out to pasture
Wasteland Remastered is now free to claim and keep on Xbox
It's time to grab another free Xbox game! InXile Entertainment's Wasteland Remastered is currently available to claim for free on the Microsoft Store.
Walmart’s new $60 Onn 4K Pro Google TV box is launching soon, here’s every detail
Ahead of its formal launch, Walmart’s new Onn 4K Pro Google TV box is starting to show up in stores...
Boston Celtics vs. Philadelphia 76ers - Live Score
View the Boston Celtics vs. Philadelphia 76ers game played on April 30, 2026. Box score, stats, play-by-play timeline, highlights, odds & more
LIV Golf to shut down? Saudi Arabia financiers may pull support, leaving PGA Tour rival at crossroads
Four years after its dramatic launch, LIV Golf may be going out with a whimper
Traws Pharma Reports Full Year 2025 Results and Provides Business Highlights
Tivoxavir marboxil advancing towards a human influenza challenge trial as a once-monthly prophylactic agent, building on broad preclinical antiviral activity, Ratutrelvir topline Phase 2a data show a differentiated profile versus PAXLOVID® in COVID patients, with good overall safety; final study analysis underway Private financing of up to $60M (with $10M of such amount upfront) offering of common stock and milestone-based and three-year warrants completed on April 15, 2026 supporting operations
Civic belonging in the social media era
Gen Z is politically aware online, but this doesn't always translate to real-world engagement or voting, leading to burnout and fear.
Microsoft counters the MacBook Neo with freebies for students
PC makers are discounting laptops and bundling Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions.
Hades 2's second post-launch update secretly adds a new game mode
Hades 2's second post-launch update, which has been released alongside the PS5 and Xbox ports, has secretly added a new game mode to the game.
Walmart is updating its 4K streaming box with Gemini and Matter support
The new Onn 4K Pro could make it easier to search for something to watch using Google’s upgraded assistant.
Walmart’s Google TV Streamer competitor starts hitting store shelves for $60 with a big downgrade
Walmart’s new Onn 4K Pro streaming box is starting to hit store shelves, with the device set to rival Google...
Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves - Live Score
View the Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves game played on April 25, 2026. Box score, stats, play-by-play timeline, highlights, odds & more
Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers - Live Score
View the Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers game played on May 03, 2026. Box score, stats, play-by-play timeline, highlights, odds & more
Google just unlocked 'Agent Mode' for Gemini 3.1 — here are 7 things it can now do for you
From "inbox zero" to full trip planning, here is how to unlock Google’s powerful new agentic workflows
Lakers prepare for Rockets playoff series with emphasis on rebounding
Without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined indefintely, coach JJ Redick says "taking care of the basketball and boxing out. That's the series."
Sony is nerfing its Bravia TVs' program guide
Sony is removing some features for Bravia television owners using an over the air antenna or a set top box.
Sony killing features for antenna, set-top box users of Bravia smart TVs in May
Some 2023 and 2024 models are also affected.
Police: Woman used crowbar to steal checks from Upstate business
Clemson police say a woman was arrested after checks were stolen from a local business drop box in an early morning break-in.
Cinergy Entertainment Group Partners with Unique X for Full-Circuit Technology Upgrade
Unique X has confirmed a new collaboration with Cinergy Entertainment Group to deploy its cinema software solutions across Cinergy’s entire estate. Through this agreement, Cinergy will roll out RosettaBridge TMS to every site, complemented by the implementation of RosettaNet CMS and BaseKey KDM. Together, these solutions will form a cohesive, circuit-wide platform designed to unify […]
Roundup: Here's What The Critics Think Of Mouse: P.I. For Hire Ahead Of Its Xbox Launch
Up for some classic cartoon shootin'?
Gorgeous Pixel Art Indie Game Arrives Busted On Xbox Series S
Replaced is scoring very well on PC, but the lower-tier Xbox has a game-breaking crash and incomplete ending
Replaced joins Game Pass with a simple list of Xbox achievements
After numerous delays, Replaced finally joins Xbox Game Pass today, and we can now reveal its secretive list of Xbox achievements.
Xbox Raises Eyebrows By Mentioning 'Exclusives' On The Series X|S Dashboard
Interesting timing!
Trump can’t save college sports. But Congress can.
The SCORE Act could help civilize the Wild West that student-athletes have been living in for years.
Xbox Is Having 'Very Big Discussions' About Exclusivity, Says Reporter
"There are very very very big discussions..."
A sports blitz starts tonight, plus a WNBA Draft surprise
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! I hope your TV is in working order. Coming up: 📆 A busy stretch begins 1️⃣ Dallas’ surprise at No. 1 🏆 Rory’s family win One of the busiest stretches of important pro sporting events begins tonight, and I mean that in quite a positive way. The NBA playoffs tip off in a few hours, with two Play-In games. This weekend, the NHL playoffs will join. Both sports will crown winners by the third week of June … which is when the...
Microsoft Plans to Bring Copilot Into the Agentic AI Age
An always-on Copilot could sort out your inbox and calendar.
Rochester resident, business team up to feed TSA workers amid partial shutdown
The Med City is seeing community members lend a hand to those in need, one boxed lunch at a time.
PS4 Still Leads Xbox Series X in GTA Online Users, PC Ranked Last
A new data leak shows that Grand Theft Auto 5 still has a strong player base on the PlayStation 4, even as PS6 discussions begin
Google shoehorned Rust into Pixel 10 modem to make legacy code safer
Cellular modems are complex black boxes of legacy code, but Google is making them safer with Rust.
Xbox CEO called Game Pass 'too expensive for players' in a leaked memo
The new Xbox CEO wrote a memo to employees addressing the current pricing of the Game Pass subscription service and suggesting changes would be coming.
Ketchup Entertainment Names Qube Wire As Primary Distribution Partner for Expanding Theatrical Slate, Led By Wide Release COYOTE VS. ACME
Ketchup Entertainment has appointed Qube Wire as its primary digital distribution partner across its expanding theatrical slate, led by Coyote vs. Acme, the company’s largest release to date, set for a nationwide wide rollout this summer. The slate will be immediately followed by Rolling Loud, starring Owen Wilson, Matt Rife, and Travis Scott, further cementing […]
Xbox Game Pass ‘has become too expensive,’ says Microsoft’s new gaming chief in leaked memo
It sounds like Game Pass pricing will drop soon
Xbox Shoots Down ‘Fable’ Delay Rumors, Must Dodge ‘GTA 6’
Fable will come out in the fall of 2026, Xbox reiterates, after viral rumors said it would be delayed to dodge GTA 6.
PowerWash Simulator delisting two free DLC packs from Xbox store in May
Developer FuturLab has announced it is delisting two free PowerWash Simulator DLC packs soon, as its partnership with publisher Square Enix is coming to an end.
4A Games announces Metro 2039, and we're getting an Xbox-themed reveal stream later this week
Developer 4A Games and publisher Deep Silver have announced Metro 2039, the fourth entry in the post-apocalyptic FPS series. A full reveal is coming this week.
Orlando Magic vs. Philadelphia 76ers - Live Score
View the Orlando Magic vs. Philadelphia 76ers game played on April 15, 2026. Box score, stats, play-by-play timeline, highlights, odds & more
'Metro 2039' confirmed for "Xbox First Look" show: New format will spotlight games throughout the year.
Xbox's showcase production team has been on a big tear this year, and another new format is on the horizon: starting with the return of Metro.
Tune in on Thursday for Xbox First Look: Metro 2039
Get ready for the world premiere of Metro 2039, the next entry in 4A Games’ beloved post-apocalyptic FPS series, presented by Xbox this Thursday.
Former Xbox Veteran Says Canceling The Last of Us Online Was the Right Call, Criticizes Naughty Dog and Sony for Green-lighting It in the First Place
Former Xbox Veteran Says Naughty Dog Was Right to Shut Down the Last of Us Online
This week in PC games: sci-fi shooter Pragmata, 2.5D platformer Replaced, and the most wishlisted game on Steam compete with illuminated manuscripts
All the biggest and most interesting PC games out this week, inlcuding pirate sandbox Windrose, sci-fi adventure Pragmata, and 2.5D platformer Replaced.
Microsoft’s new Xbox Gamepad Cursor adds a virtual mouse to handhelds
This new Xbox mode feature is ideal for apps that aren’t designed for a controller.
Rumour: Fable Has Apparently Been Delayed Internally, But May Still Launch In 2026
"They are worried about the launch of GTA6"
Edina students pitch business ideas in ‘Shark Tank’ competition
An innovative claw clip, a way to recycle old flowers and bento boxes were some of the products pitched by Edina High School students at the sixth annual Edina Shark
Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers - Live Score
View the Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers game played on April 18, 2026. Box score, stats, play-by-play timeline, highlights, odds & more
Get a Pokémon TCG: <em>Mega Evolution—Chaos Rising</em> Build & Battle Box Early
Open booster packs from a Mega Evolution—Chaos Rising Build & Battle Box at a Prerelease event near you.
Xbox Showcase Reportedly Coming Next Week, Metro 2039 May Be Revealed
NateTheHate provides an update on when players can expect the next Xbox Games Showcase. Supposedly, it's coming next week
Former Xbox Exec Says Developers Didn't Want a Sony Monopoly
Former Xbox executive Ed Fries comments on the early days of Xbox, the opinion of Japanese game companies, and more.
Masters 2026: Sergio Garcia gets warning after going nuclear on tee box, breaking driver and ending up carrying Jon Rahm's bag
Sergio Garcia was given a warning just two holes after he erupted on Sunday morning.
Big Ten dominates 2026 preseason college football QB rankings
Jayden Maiava is one of four Big Ten quarterbacks to appear in a preseason list of the nation's best signal-callers. See which other QBs are there:
Forza Horizon 4 Is Still Packed With Players On Xbox, And It's Easing The Wait For Horizon 6
One final lap of open-world Britain?
Nintendo's Animated Films Challenge Disney's Box Office Dominance
Nintendo's expansion into theatrical animation, with billion-dollar films and an annual release slate, is challenging Disney's dominance while strategically promoting its gaming hardware and franchises like the successful Switch 2.
Rumour: Call of Duty's $300 Million Xbox Game Pass Gambit Could End
Xbox owners may soon have to buy the game like on PS5
“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.
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