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Check Out a Variety of Free Entertainment on Libby!
You may know that the Coos Bay Public Library offers multiple ways to access eBooks and audiobooks, but did you know that we have expanded the services available on our
Crupper Wins Boathouse Row On Front End, Punches Preakness Ticket
Robert Zoellner’s homebred Crupper was prominent on the front end Saturday and won the $200,000 Boathouse Row Stakes at Oaklawn Park while earning an automatic berth in the $2-million Preakness Stakes (G1) May 16 at Laurel Park. Trained by Donnie Von Hemel and ridden by Junior Alvarado, the son of ...
Hundreds bring their pets to Tuskegee University for annual animal health fair
Veterinary students and professionals gave free health examinations for pets and offered families a variety of vaccinations at a low cost.
Apple's upcoming AirPods Pro 3 variant could debut a groundbreaking new feature
Earlier this year, Apple acquired a secretive startup: Q.ai, for over 2 billion dollars. It’s the companies second largest acquisition...
Dylan Sprouse Tackles Alleged Trespasser at His Home
Sprouse also had a gun during the confrontation, but reports vary as to whether he ever brandished it.
Dylan Sprouse Tackles Alleged Trespasser at His Home
Sprouse also had a gun during the confrontation, but reports vary as to whether he ever brandished it.
Dylan Sprouse Tackles Alleged Trespasser at His Home
Sprouse also had a gun during the confrontation, but reports vary as to whether he ever brandished it.
Dylan Sprouse Tackles Alleged Trespasser at His Home
Sprouse also had a gun during the confrontation, but reports vary as to whether he ever brandished it.
Dylan Sprouse Tackles Alleged Trespasser at His Home
Sprouse also had a gun during the confrontation, but reports vary as to whether he ever brandished it.
Police activity closes Main Street near Las Vegas Boulevard
Police activity closed a portion of Main Street near Las Vegas Boulevard in the central valley Saturday morning.
Man injured after shooting at TNT Sports Tavern in Norfolk
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A man was injured after a shooting at TNT Sports Tavern on Chesapeake Boulevard in Norfolk Saturday morning, according to the Norfolk Police Department. On April 18 at a…
Student filmmakers shine at Aquila’s Full Circle Film Fest
Media production company Aquila Entertainment showcased a variety of student-made shorts at their latest annual Full Circle Film Fest on April 14.
Joe Starkey: Thankfully, Pittsburgh sports in much better shape as NFL Draft spotlight falls upon city
We’re not quite the City of Champions again, but we’re not the City of Chumps, either. Not anymore, and thankfully not this coming week, as the eyes of the sports world descend upon Pittsburgh for the NFL Draft. It’s easier to be a good host when you’re not wearing a
A Hahnville freshman 'battled in the circle' to pitch a complete game in her first playoff action
The moment wasn't too big for this Hahnville freshman in her first varsity playoff game.
Community Health Fair has free grocery giveaway for Hillsborough County residents
Residents of Hillsborough County can receive free groceries as well as a variety of health services by attending a community health fair on Saturday hosted by Hillsborough County’s Healthy Li…
Time for government, business leaders to figure out AI cybersecurity regulation
Experts say capabilities of agentic AI rising, along with risk to personal data, economy, national security.
What it will take to turn things around
Mitt Romney offers critique on nation’s divisiveness, foreign policy, value of hard, thankless work of governing.
Iowa State to add women’s wrestling as varsity sport beginning in 2027-28
Iowa State will become the ninth Division I school to add varsity women's wrestling. The news comes after the Cyclones eliminated women's gymnastics.
Jet Aviation Plants Own Brand on IFE/CMS
IFX is an in-house-developed product line available for a variety of aircraft
Caitlyn Jenner slammed over asking Donald Trump for help changing passport gender
'The View' star Ana Navarro slammed Caitlyn Jenner for asking Donald Trump for help after her passport was changed to reflect the gender she was assigned at birth: 'Cry me a f---ing river.'
Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred’s New Endgame Is All About More Freedom and Less Friction
Could Blizzard finally give us an endgame that was not only fun at launch, but also offered enough variety to keep folks engaged in the long term? After playing a few hours of it recently and talking to the developers about what they’re building, I can confirm that Blizzard appears to have received the feedback in this area, and has created an endgame structure that, at the very least, has a much better chance of keeping my attention.
Ohio State offensive line target set to announce commitment today
Ohio State will find out today if a crystal ball prediction to land four-star lineman Jimmy Kalis comes true.
Serie A official line-ups: Sassuolo vs. Como
Como hope Nico Paz, Martin Baturina and Alvaro Morata can inspire them to victory against a Sassuolo side without Domenico Berardi.It kicks off at the Mapei Stadium in Reggio Emilia at 17.45 UK time (...
Eastern Michigan To Add Women’s Flag Football In 2027
Eastern Michigan University announced today, April 16, the addition of women's flag football as an intercollegiate varsity sport, expanding its commitment to growth and opportunity within the Department of Athletics. The announcement follows the NCAA's January 2026 designation of women's flag football as an Emerging Sport for Women.
Shhh! A new Fells Point lounge wants to be Baltimore’s best-kept secret.
In Baltimore, a city more known for its bars and watering holes than nightclubs, Wonderland wants to draw a crowd that relishes dressing up and letting loose to dance music.
Need new plants after the winter freeze? Check out these gardening events
Brevard gardeners faced a winter freeze that damaged plants. Two upcoming events offer trees, plants and resources for replanting.
🏆Shocks and LOTS of goals: Thursday's Sudamericana highlights
That’s a wrap on all of Thursday’s Copa Sudamericana matches, and here we bring you the star, the surprise, and the disappointment of the day.Álvarez’s machine got goingAfter the draw in Paragu...
Eastern Michigan to add women's flag football as varsity program
Eastern Michigan is the first school in the state of Michigan to announce a varsity women's flag football program.
Trump put Vance in charge of Iran peace talks. He’s now quizzing people on his vice president’s performance
With Vice President JD Vance, a one-time Iran war skeptic, now tasked with brokering a deal to end it, President Donald Trump has been monitoring his progress closely and inquiring with various friends and advisers how they’d rank his performance, according to three people familiar with the conversations.
OpenAI takes aim at Anthropic with beefed-up Codex that gives it more power over your desktop
OpenAI's agentic coding tool has gotten a major makeover, with a variety of new powers and abilities.
Transparency is one of best ways to hold politicians accountable: OpenTheBooks CEO
OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart discusses the need for transparency regarding federal fraud and an audit highlighting the delinquency of IRS workers regarding taxes on 'Varney & Co.'
Too much light at night may harm health | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
A lot of light at night—for example, from screens or streetlights—can lead to health harms, according to experts including Harvard Chan School's Eva Schernhammer.
How our surroundings shape health: A conversation between environmental scientists | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
For more than 50 years, Jack Spengler has advanced our understanding of how environment shapes health through pioneering research on the importance of air quality, healthy buildings, and climate resilience.
Town of Normal to celebrate Arbor Day with education, entertainment and tree planting
The town of Normal Parks & Recreation Department will celebrate Arbor Day with a variety of activities, including a presentation, tree planting, movie screening, and community tree planting.
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.
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.
Sun Fun Festival kicks off Myrtle Beach tourist season
The first Sun Fun was held in 1951 to help draw tourists and locals to the Ocean Boulevard area.
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.
Artificially sweetened beverages may benefit healthy weight, but water works better | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Increasing intake of water or artificially sweetened drinks was associated with less weight gain over time, compared to increased sugary drink intake.
Review: Pragmata On Switch 2: An Ambitious Port Held Back By Variable Performance
Not so pragmatic decision-making.
Iowa State Adds Women's Wrestling As 18th Varsity Program
AMES, Iowa - Women's wrestling will debut as Iowa State University's 18 th intercollegiate athletics program during the 2027-28 academic year, Endowed Cyclon...
4 New Apple Intelligence Features Found in Apple Code, Likely in iOS 27
iOS 27 is likely to introduce at least four new Apple Intelligence features that function within system apps, based on backend code discovered by Nicolás Alvarez and confirmed by MacRumors. First up, Apple is expected to lean more heavily into Visual Intelligence in iOS 27, since the company is reportedly developing AI wearable devices that will leverage the feature. Apple is reportedly working on smart glasses, AirPods with cameras, and a wearable AI pin or pendant.
Brevard on a budget: Free, fun things to do this weekend, April 17-23
On a budget? Free, fun things to do in Brevard this weekend include BBQ festival, summer camp fair and a choral concert.
WTC Health Programs aims to fill vacant jobs after pressure from NY delegation
The WTCHP serves about 140,000 people dealing with a variety of health issues tied to the 9/11 attacks.
Leadership styles vary among local champions
Mark Hughes Cobb reflects on local leadership styles in football, Mercedes, art and music.
Cooper PTA hosts annual science night
Cooper Elementary School's PTA hosted a science night on Wednesday, with a variety of fun activities for kids to learn about science.
Butte County Public Health releases 2025 annual report, spotlights community initatives
Butte County Public Health (BCPH) has released its 2025 annual report, highlighting various programs at the department.
The Ethics of Junk Science: It’s Time for a Reboot - Petrie-Flom Center
Science is supposed to be self-correcting. That mechanism is broken.
Brevard County HS Sports Weekly Results, Week of April 13-18
Brevard County HS Sports Weekly Results, Week of April 13-18
UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital treats first clinical trial participant in novel cancer study - UT Health San Antonio
Milestone paves the way for advancements in cancer care, innovation and patient care in San Antonio and South Texas Contact: Steven Lee, (210) 450-3823, lees22@uthscsa.edu Content by Jane Alvarez-Hernandez SAN ANTONIO, April 15, 2026 – UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital has enrolled and treated its first clinical trial participant in a novel cancer […]
Rock the Paws: Companion Animal Care hosts event to support pets for seniors
Companion Animal Care of Brevard County hosts \
Athens restaurant scores range from perfect to problematic
Health inspections show a mix of perfect scores and notable violations at various Athens restaurants.
Rezz Cancels Coachella Weekend Two Performance Due to Health Issues
The electronic musician has canceled her weekend two Coachella performance due health issues.
This simple change stops robot swarms from getting stuck
In crowded environments, more robots don’t always mean faster results—in fact, too many can bring everything to a standstill. Harvard researchers discovered a surprising fix: adding a bit of randomness to how robots move can actually prevent gridlock and boost efficiency. By allowing robots to “wiggle” slightly instead of marching in straight lines, they can slip past each other and keep tasks flowing smoothly.
Reno Pro Soccer's $350M entertainment district 'The Boulevard Reno' includes hotel/casino
The group behind Reno Pro Soccer's attempt to build a first-of-its-kind soccer stadium in Northern Nevada has submitted a pre-planning application for its ambit
Reno Pro Soccer's $350M entertainment district 'The Boulevard Reno' includes hotel/casino
The group behind Reno Pro Soccer's attempt to build a first-of-its-kind soccer stadium in Northern Nevada has submitted a pre-planning application for its ambit
Reno Pro Soccer's $350M entertainment district 'The Boulevard Reno' includes hotel/casino
The group behind Reno Pro Soccer's attempt to build a first-of-its-kind soccer stadium in Northern Nevada has submitted a pre-planning application for its ambit
Pitt to offer online Infant Mental Health certificate
A new University of Pittsburgh academic program aims to address the mental health, growth and development needs of infants and toddlers amid a shortage of qualified, working professionals. Pitt has launched a new, online graduate certificate in Infant Mental Health. The 12-credit program kicks off this fall, said Robert Gallen,
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.
UNC Health Pardee Hosts Community Open House for Brevard Campus
UNC Health Pardee Hosts Community Open House for Brevard Campus
Victoria Li's senior project: Exploring how AI processes information
Knowing how chatbots turn input into output will help with reliability and trust in AI agents
Housing and homelessness: Solutions at the intersection of public health and public safety | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Leaders across public health and public safety convened for this Studio conversation that moves beyond emergency response toward prevention, housing-first strategies, and long-term solutions.
Analysis shows aggressive Republican redistricting in Florida would put more GOP seats at risk
Will a redraw backfire on the Florida GOP? A study by Alex Alvarado suggests so.
Sperm quality is at its peak in the summer, study finds
Seasonal shifts in behavior — not temperature — may subtly influence sperm motility. Whether this variation in sperm quality influences fertility remains to be seen.
Nielsen Names Roberto Ruiz Head of Measurement Science
Nielsen Names Roberto Ruiz Head of Measurement Science
Men and women with obesity face very different hidden health risks
New research reveals that obesity affects men and women in surprisingly different ways. Men are more likely to develop harmful abdominal fat and signs of liver stress, while women show higher inflammation and cholesterol levels. These differences could help explain why health risks vary between sexes. Scientists say this could lead to more tailored treatments for obesity.
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Color Likely as Android Rivals Prep Same Shade
Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro is very likely to come in a new deep red color, claims a Chinese leaker, because the color is already being prototyped by Android phone makers. In February, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple is testing a deep red finish for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. Rumors of purple and brown finishes have also circulated, but Gurman believes those are just variants of the same red idea.
On the job with Jessika Varner, business manager/community engagement coordinator at Horizon Science Academy of Lorain
Jessika Varner, business manager and community engagement coordinator at the Horizon Science Academy in Lorain, said she started working for a school system in her early 20s. Varner worked for the Concept Schools location in…
Brevard County high school sports weekly schedule, Week of April 13-19
Brevard County high school sports schedule for the week of April 13-19, 2026.
Brevard County high school sports weekly schedule, Week of April 13-19
Brevard County high school sports schedule for the week of April 13-19, 2026.
AD Chris McIntosh is reportedly leaving Wisconsin for role in Big Ten office
According to two reports, Chris McIntosh, Barry Alvarez's successor as athletic director, is leaving Wisconsin for a job with the Big Ten Conference.
Apple reportedly testing four designs for upcoming smart glasses
These glasses are a step back from an ambitious plan that once called for Apple to launch a variety of mixed and augmented reality devices.
👑 Muriqi cements Mallorca legacy with brace against Vallecano
There's a new name atop the goalscoring pantheon in the Balearic Islands after Kosovar star Vedat Muriqi continued his scintillating 2025/26 form against Rayo Vallecano. The 31-year-old Prizren-born t...
Why Ozempic doesn’t work for everyone: Scientists just found a hidden reason
A new study reveals that popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may not work as effectively for about 10% of people due to specific genetic variants. These individuals appear to have a puzzling condition called “GLP-1 resistance,” where their bodies produce higher levels of the hormone targeted by these drugs—but don’t respond to it properly.
FULL SHOW: Inside INdiana Business 4/12/26
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No. 17 Yale Silences No. 5 Harvard’s Stars, Dominates 16-9 | Sports
No. 17 Yale Silences No. 5 Harvard’s Stars, Dominates 16-9 | Sports | The Harvard Crimson
“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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