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Stephen Hawking's black hole information paradox could be solved — if the universe has 7 dimensions
Stephen Hawking's theory of black hole evaporation clashes with the laws of quantum mechanics. A new paper finds a way around this paradox, provided that the universe has seven dimensions.
The medical AI revolution requires rethinking health care's architecture
"Instead of organizing health data around institutions, we might organize it around individuals," write Meta's Freddy Abnousi and Stanford's Celina Yong.
Dodgers on Deck: Friday, April 17 at Rockies
After an off day Thursday, the Dodgers open a four-game weekend wraparound against the Colorado Rockies starting Friday night at Coors Field in Denver. Tyler Glasnow takes the ball in the series opener on Friday. Right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano will be on the mound for Colorado. Friday game info
How Dangerous Is Anthropic’s New AI Model? Its Chief Science Officer Explains.
Just how fast is the future coming at us, and how worried should we be? Last week, Anthropic announced Claude Mythos, the latest in what has become the leading family of AI models. In a very short time, AI models from Anthropic and other companies have become shockingly powerful at coding. But Mythos stands out because it is not just able to write code that can hack into critical systems, like those that run financial companies, but also to analyze systems and find and string together vulnerabilities in them, allowing Mythos to evade even sophisticated defenses. Anthropic chose to release Mythos to only about 40 leading corporations, so they could analyze the model’s capabilities and prepare countermeasures, in an effort it calls Project Glasswing. The release of Mythos—and the prospect of similarly powerful AIs to follow—has caused tremors at the top levels of Washington and corporate America. Jared Kaplan, co-founder and chief science officer at Anthropic, is at the center of this breakthrough. We sat down with Kaplan so he could walk us through just how powerful Mythos is, what the implications are for issues like our personal privacy, and what comes next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Sean Fischer: For the layman, how is Claude Mythos different—more powerful, more dangerous—from previous models released by Anthropic? Jared Kaplan: I think most people have experienced the fact that our computers get faster and faster over time and over many decades. There’s this very smooth trend where every 18 months, maybe, computer processing power doubles. I think AI is on a trend in which it’s improving maybe 10 times faster than that. A lot of the earliest work that I did in AI was around identifying this scaling trend in AI. Claude Mythos is the latest model from Anthropic, but it’s not different because it’s qualitatively different. It’s really just kind of the culmination of the trend of AI models getting smarter and smarter at all kinds of general capabilities, from reasoning to software engineering to scientific research to knowledge work. For us, it was the first model to demonstrate very elite-level cybersecurity capabilities. It wasn’t because we trained Claude Mythos to focus on cybersecurity, but it was because, as a byproduct of its general intelligence and its general ability with software, it’s particularly good at identifying vulnerabilities in software and how to exploit them.
AMD Linux Graphics Driver Introducing "Power Module" To Better Match Windows Behavior
With the set of today's AMDGPU kernel graphics driver Display Core (DC) patches is a rather curious addition with wiring up the Linux code to a 'power module' that looks like it will better match Microsoft Windows behavior with the AMD Radeon driver around display-related power savings features.
Around the MHS
The latest news from around the Military Health System for the week of April 13-17, 2026, includes the U.S. Navy medical team recovering Artemis II, a U.S. Army Captain’s unconventional journey to becoming a dentist, and a first-of-its-kind spinal surgery at U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa, Hawaii.
Jaylen Brown on improved mental, physical health heading into Celtics playoffs
Celtics star Jaylen Brown isn't dealing with a nagging knee injury like he was last year. This time around, he feels mentally and physically stronger.
Siri Engineers Sent to AI Coding Bootcamp as Apple Prepares to Deliver Siri Overhaul
Apple is sending a large portion of its Siri engineers to a multi-week bootcamp to learn to code using AI, reports The Information. Apple's decision to teach its programmers to better use AI for coding comes just two months before Apple is expected to unveil a smarter, more capable version of Siri at WWDC. While employees attend the coding bootcamp, around 60 members of the Siri development team will stick around to work on Siri, and an additional 60 will evaluate how Siri is performing.
Southlake Carroll (TX) football reveals 2026 schedule
High school football schedules for the 2026 season are coming out one-by-one out of every state around the country and one that is a breeding ground for college prospects is Texas, with a number of squads finalizing their fall slates. Next up to announce their schedule from the Lone Star State is one of the […]
Things to do this weekend in Metro Detroit
Concerts, theater, art events and more are on deck around Detroit this weekend, April 17-19.
Inside the sudden downfall of Eric Swalwell
As one California Democrat prepared to formally endorse Rep. Eric Swalwell for governor this spring, the lawmaker hesitated. They had heard rumors the married father of three slept around in Washington and worried about putting their name behind him in a crucial contest.
Trump reveals he has multi-pick SCOTUS plan ready as retirement speculation heats up
President Trump says he is prepared to appoint up to three Supreme Court justices as speculation swirls around Justice Alito's possible retirement.
AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship welcomes 2026 fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Fifteen early career scientists — spanning research areas from medical artificial intelligence to exoplanets to bug science — will join newsrooms around the country and in Puerto Rico this summer to contribute their skills towards increased public understanding of science and technology.
Report: iPad Air to Gain OLED Display Next Year
Apple will bring OLED displays to its iPad Air models next year, according to a new report from Korea's ET News. Citing industry sources, the outlet says Samsung Display will begin mass production of OLED panels around the end of 2026 or January next year, with a view to supplying panels for Apple's next iPad Air, expected to be released in early 2027. Apple last updated the iPad Air in March 2026 with an M4 chip.
UK fund major L&G aims to double Asia business, CEO says
Britain's biggest asset manager Legal & General aims to double its assets under management in Asia to around $500 billion amid its push to grow its international business, CEO Antonio Simoes told Reuters on Monday.
From a massive living area to an entertainment room and art collection: Ram Kapoor’s approximately Rs 20 crore Mumbai house
Ram Kapoor enjoys a lavish lifestyle in Mumbai with wife Gautami and kids. He once gave a glimpse of his luxurious Mumbai house in a Farah Khan’s vlog. The house is worth around Rs 20 crore and includes an entertainment room, bar and much more. Here’s a look at his lavish Mumbai house:
Gov. Spanberger visits the Valley to support business investments, I-81 widening
Gov. Abigail Spanberger made her way to the Shenandoah Valley on Tuesday morning, with stops around Harrisonburg and Rockingham County highlighting major investments, a local business expansion and the kickoff of a long-awaited widening project on Interstate 81.
Businesses fundraising for family after tragic loss
LAKE POINSETT, S.D. (KELO) — An eastern South Dakota community is grieving after a beloved son and brother died unexpectedly over the weekend. But, businesses around Lake Poinsett are steppin…
NASA Finds Young Stars Dim in X-rays Surprisingly Quickly
Unlike in the new movie “Project Hail Mary,” this quieting of young stars is a benefit for the prospects for life on orbiting planets around these stars — not
Gemini app starts rolling out Personal Intelligence globally
After the US launch, Google is bringing Personal Intelligence to Gemini users around the world (excluding Europe).
What is World Quantum Day and why does it matter?
Scientists, educators, and technology leaders around the world are marking World Quantum Day on Tuesday.
Chargers Daily Links: Tuesday Open Thread
Your source for all Chargers and NFL news from around the web.
NFL mock draft roundup: Experts predict first round before draft
The 2026 NFL Draft begins on April 23. Here are the latest expert projections for the first round from around the web.
How Trump’s ultimatum on DEI divided a Texas city
The debate in Fort Worth echoes a dilemma that local leaders are grappling with around the country: End diversity programs or risk losing all federal funding.
New Mexico childhood obesity up as Trump administration cuts erode healthy food programs
By third grade, New Mexico childhood obesity rates outpace the national average — which hovers around 20% for those 2 to 19.
Iran: Israel’s Oil Depot Strikes Endanger Environment, Health
Israeli attacks on four oil depots around Tehran on March 7, 2026 may cause long-term health and environmental harm for civilians.
Wazdakka Gutsmek rules revealed – Launch your own Speedwaaagh!
Lead your Warbikers to the biggest and best fights around.
Scientists Grow Electronics Inside the Brains of Living Mice
The technology harnesses the brain's own blood chemistry to assemble soft, light-controlled electrodes around neurons.
Oregon High School Football: West Linn releases schedule
High school football schedules for the 2026 season are coming out one-by-one out of every state around the country and one that is a breeding ground for college prospects is Oregon, with a number of squads finalizing their fall slates. The top high school football team out of the state of Oregon is the West […]
UFC White House adds historic $1 million fighter bonus
If the stakes at the UFC White House weren't already high enough, fighters will now get the chance to collect a $1 million bonus when the event rolls around on June 14. Upon the announcement of the event, there was excitement in the air with many predicting who they believed would feature on the ...
Wall Street still loves streaming, but are its affections well placed?
While streaming continues to drive media stocks, especially around quarterly earnings, it's not clear when it will start driving profits for smaller players.
2026 All-Juice Team: One play from Fernando Mendoza earned him instant entry to this squad
On a team and in a process that has always sought QBs who could lead and elevate players around them, Mendoza's inclusion became a no-brainer. With that in mind, we give you the 12th installment of the All-Juice Team.
Health Sciences Weekend Unites Alumni Around Shared Health Science Center Story
For decades, alumni returned to the University of Tennessee Health Sciences through individual college and class reunions, usually over six different weekends throughout the year.
Health Sciences Weekend Unites Alumni Around Shared Health Science Center Story
For decades, alumni returned to the University of Tennessee Health Sciences through individual college and class reunions, usually over six different weekends throughout the year.
7 ways AI is advancing healthcare and wellbeing around the world
AI-powered tools are being used to bring greater efficiency and security to healthcare around the world and increase access to medicines and care.
MLB Power Rankings: Let the turnarounds begin? Which teams have already exorcised their early season demons
In the long slog that is a 162-game season, early results can mean nothing -- or everything
Trump wanted California Republicans to back Steve Hilton. They didn’t listen
Republicans at their state party convention couldn’t coalesce around one of their two candidates for governor, ending in no endorsement
Nukes and Nassau Hall: Inside Princeton’s Science and Global Security Program
Co-directors of Princeton's Science and Global Security Program Zia Mian and Alexander Glaser are working to understand nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and policies around disarmament alongside a team of researchers and visiting scholars.
Liverpool, the Grand National and the rumbling discord around Merseyside’s biggest sporting day
Those in control of the most powerful sporting institutions stand accused of understanding the cost of everything but the value of nothing
Extra half-mile added to some runner’s course during Covenant Health Knoxville Marathon
The email said the lead vehicle took participants approximately a half mile longer than the advertised distance at the turnaround on Neyland Drive.
Community rallies around local business after fire
Investigators are trying to find out what set off a massive fire that tore through a lumber business in Wayne County.
Making light spin with a gold nanorod
Controlling photon spin, or the handedness of light, is useful for storing and transmitting information. However, generating circularly polarized light typically requires complex or chiral structures. Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science show that hitting a gold nanorod slightly off-center with an electron beam causes the light around it to rotate. This method offers a simpler way to control photon spin and could accelerate the development of smaller, more efficient optical and quantum devices.
How Golden Entertainment (GDEN) Narratives Are Shifting As Analysts Recut Targets And Takeover Nears
Golden Entertainment’s fair value estimate has been nudged from US$30.50 to US$30.00 per share, a small adjustment that still keeps the story focused around a US$30 mark. Some analysts view this US$0.50 trim as an incremental shift that reflects updated valuation inputs rather than a major change in the underlying outlook, while more cautious voices see it as a signal of reduced conviction at recent prices. As you read on, you will see how this updated target fits into the evolving analyst...
A president and a pope: Two of the world’s most influential Americans at odds over Iran
Never before has the relationship between Washington and the Vatican revolved around two Americans — specifically, a 79-year-old politician from Queens and a 70-year-old pontiff from Chicago.
Business briefs: Gary schools launch community gardens initiative
News and events around the area
Android version of popular iPhone feature could be available soon
An Android version of an iOS feature around since iOS 17 could be arriving soon.
Arizona State tennis programs head to Big 12 tournaments
Here are the events happening around Arizona State athletics from April 12-18, 2026.
Are ancient grains better for you? The surprising truth about quinoa and spelt
Is the hype around the health benefits of ancient grains justified? Scientists say its not as clear-cut as you might think.
Sutton's predictions: Sunderland v Tottenham
What's Roberto de Zerbi going to do with Tottenham and how will he set them up? The whole situation is just odd, with De Zerbi securing a five-year contract despite only hanging around for more than two years at one of his previous eight clubs. Sunderland's form at the Stadium of Light has dipped a bit since they lost their unbeaten home record against Liverpool in February, but the Black Cats will be buoyant after beating Newcastle last time out.
Nell Nolan: 8 O'Clocks, Christian Brothers Gala, Chapelle Emerald Gala
Rocking around the Clocks
How to watch the 2026 San Antonio Sports All-Star Basketball Game on April 12
More than 100 of the top high school basketball players in and around San Antonio will suit up on April 12.
Bay Area fans celebrate Artemis II splashdown with a roar at Chabot Space Center in Oakland
When the astronauts of the Artemis II splashed down off the coast of San Diego on Friday, cheers were heard around the country -- even in Oakland. Hundreds came out to the Chabot Space and Science Center in the Oakland Hills to celebrate the historical event.
ON THE JOB: “What is the Best Business Advice You’ve Ever Received?
Interviews by Deborah Jeanne Sergeant Sound advice can contribute to your success. We recently asked area business leaders, what was their best advice they’d ever received. Here’s what they said: “The best advice I ever received was from my then –boss, Gerry Church, Fulton plant manager at Miller Brewing Co. He told me that whenever I wanted to discuss a business problem or issue with him, I should also be prepared to offer possible solutions. It’s the difference between being proactive or reactive. It’s also the difference between being a leader or follower. That has served me well in any business relationship I have had since then.” — Stephen Chirello, Owner, Steve Chirello Advertising, Fulton “Someone will always do it for less; they will also take the most effort to service or satisfy and leave you for the next lower price.” — John M. Henry, Owner, Speedway Press, Mitchell Printing, Phoenix Press, Oswego “I’m going to answer this question by turning it around and giving my own advice that is, ‘Always treat every customer as if they were your only customer!’ We are celebrating our 50th anniversary in business this year. We started our business on March 25, 1976. My advice works.”” — Nick Chervinsky, President, Brewerton Pharmacy, Brewerton “’You need to toot your own horn, my grandfather, Howard D. Dice, told me.” — Beth Ann Dice, Women’s active aging and cancer recovery coach, Mission Movement Wellness Studio & Breast Cancer Recovery Studio, Fulton “In the micro enterprise class, they taught, ‘Get a good lawyer, accountant and bank.’ That was over 30 years ago and I still have those three today. I chose good people I could grow with.” — Tony Pauldine, Owner, Anthony M. Pauldine General Contractors Inc., Oswego “From my grandfather; ‘Listen to everyone! You never know where you will get the solution you need.’” — Kevin Dean, Executive director, Oswego County Opportunities, Fulton “‘Preparation is the mother of success.’ My dad always drilled that into my head growing up, and it has helped me avoid a lot of snags in both my personal and professional life. Thanks, Dad!” — Bekkah Frisch, Owner and president, iHeart Holdings, Inc., Fulton “If you don’t take a risk and try, you will never know.” — Justin Taber, Owner, Torbitt’s Service Center, Oswego “Be ready to take a loss.” — Cody Seymour, Manager, Damiano’s Eatery, Mexico “I’ve received so much good business advice over the years. When people are giving you advice, always be curious rather than judgmental. Follow your gut. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.” — Dana Decker, Principal owner/broker, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Oswego ’Do it and figure it out later.’ It hasn’t failed me yet. Too many people take time to think about doing this and this and this and then the opportunity is over with. If it’s somewhat reasonable — if it’s not something outrageous — do it and figure it out later.” — Jeremy Allen, Licensed real estate salesperson, Acropolis Realty Group, Syracuse “’Try to meet the needs of the customer. Treat them like you’d like to be treated.’ It’s like the Golden Rule says.” — Douglas Dickson, Physician and associate at CNY Foot Surgery and Podiatry Care, East Syracuse “The best piece of business advice I’ve ever received applies to life in general: always be honest. Never overstate your capabilities and always be willing to ask questions. The more specific you can be in any given topic will always lead to a better outcome.” — Tom Fernandez, President, Woodbine Hospitality, Syracuse “As a business owner, the advice would be ‘Don’t overextend yourself. Especially in agriculture, expect issues to come up.’ If something is going right, it’s not true agriculture. This last season, we scaled very hard to field another crew. We got more drones, crew and generators based on projections. This last season hit the ag community hard with a very wet spring. We did 15,000 to 20,000 acres for fungicide and the same for cover crop seeding in 2024. We scaled to 25,000 to 30,000 for 2025. We ended up doing 2,000 for fungicide and 3,000 for cover crop seeding. That’s why that advice was good.” — Rick Jordan, Operations manager, CNY Drove Services, Clinton “’Keep your head down, mind your own business and do the best for your clients that you can do.’ It has a lot to do with my success in working for Galloway Century 21.” — Ed Fayette, New York state licensed real estate agent, Century 21 Galloway, Oswego “’Expand in all ways, always.’ It just keeps you going and keeps you growing.” — Stephen Baier, Licensed real estate person, The Real Estate Agency & Bouck Commercial, Auburn “The best advice is, ‘Your biggest asset you won’t see on the books because it comes from your employees.’” — David Flickinger, Owner, Edible Arrangements, Syracuse “Don’t take things personally when you’re working with the public.” — Leeann Desimone, Manager, Annie’s Hallmark Shop, Auburn “‘Follow up.’ The customer knows that you care about what you are doing and that their opinion counts. Sometimes they might be on the fence about whether they want to use your company. If they’re asking your opinion on things, they feel you are concerned about what you’re doing. They like to be kept in the loop if they’re spending money with you.” — Dorothy Casper, Saslesperson, SweetWoods Memorials, Phoenix “The best business advice I received is ‘Never be the smartest person in the room. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.’ That’s how you learn.” — Debbie Bilello, Owner, Virtual Office Solutions, Central Square “’You need to grow your business but you can’t grow too big too fast.’ That’s what we’ve done at Pinnacle Maintenance. We’ve tried to grow but not too fast. Along those same lines, there’s another good piece of advice, ‘Don’t take on more than you can handle because it only leads to a bad name for your business and a bad experience for your customers.’ It goes along the same lines as growing your business slowly and carefully.” — David Wines, Owner, Pinnacle Maintenance, Central Square “Always be on time and do what you say you are going to do.’ I’ve done very well following that advice. Most of my work is referral and I don’t really do any advertising so I have a pretty good customer base. It’s mostly word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.” — Robert J. Fleming, Owner, Bob Fleming Windows & Doors, Brewerton “’Concentrate on your finances, always pay your taxes, and form a team you can depend on. Try to help the community you’re in as much as you can.’ We do all of these all the time here. We give and give and give to the community and the community gives back to us always.” — Susan Bonnet, Co-owner, Bonnet Sales and Service, Central Square “Keep smiling. It brings a positive attitude to the workplace.” — Karin Lindsley, Vice president, DTS Truck Service, Syracuse “‘Customer service above all.’ Following this advice has served us very well.’ — Guy Fox, Owner, Fox’s Discount Parts, West Monroe “The best thing to do is to make sure you’re taking in more money than you’re spending. I wish I could say I’m a good businessman but I have been in business since 1981. I’m not a bean counter but work well with my hands and its’s served me well all these years and I am still in business.” — Matt McGill, Owner, Matt McGill Collision, Brewerton
Seniors: Dennis Ouellette, 80
Ontario Orchards owner not slowing down as he grows his farm market By Stefan Yablonski The seeds for Dennis Ouellette’s career path were sown when he was 6 years old — and he isn’t slowing down. “Since age 6, I grew up an agriculturalist. That is 72 years. Started out with a 37-acre farm when I bought it from my parents and built it up to almost 300 acres. Brought it back down to around 200 acres now,” he said. The location of his business was just a barn, a horse barn, he said. “In 1967, it officially became Ontario Orchards Farm Market. My wife [June] and I graduated [high school] in 1964 and three years later we became Ontario Orchards. We have been here more than 60 years,” he explained. “It is the same location. We have expanded over the years as the customers mentioned different things; we have expanded to bring in different products. “What keeps me going is I totally enjoy what I am doing. I enjoy the people that I work with. The customers are wonderful. Mostly, more important than anything, is my family — my wife, my daughters, grandchildren, son-in-law — we are still very much a family business I’m not going to retire just yet.” He also enjoys the changing seasons. “Ontario Orchards is a four-season business. There is always something new; more energy, more interest. Not only for the business but for my staff, the people that work here. Things keep changing, changing. We are always looking forward to something new and exciting,” he said. They work with quite a number of local farmers within the area and throughout the state, throughout the country and from around the world.” “We do have things from different countries around the world. But specifically, we are very excited about the local. We have an over 200-acre farm. We sell just about everything we raise on that farm right here at the farm market. For example, we press cider year-round. We make baked goods every day, year-round. We sell our apples 12 months a year.” “Today, there are so many products in Ontario Orchards that we never would have thought of in 1967,” he continued. “I attribute a lot of that to my daughters. I like the young blood and new energy. That is very crucial to a business, it keeps it vibrant.” What’s his favorite part of the job? “I don’t have a favorite part. I enjoy it all. I have a lot of intertest in other things,” he said. “I have staff that knows so much. I can go to the staff and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, you tell me what this is.’ They are so knowledgeable. It is impossible for one person to know everything in this place. In the summer, staff is about 60; in the winter about 20, 25.” He added that he plans on being around for several more years.
Coaching search shows UNC Basketball still an elite job
The extraordinary events around the search Hubert Davis’ replacement reveal just how unique the UNC job is.
“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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Trump likes to back winners in foreign elections. The upcoming vote in Hungary will test his clout
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In praise of popular science
As a kid, I was enthusiastically and unreservedly in favor of a manned space program. Our destiny lay in the stars, I figured. Get people out there. We need Star Trek here and now. As I got older, I became rather disenchanted with the idea. Humans are expensive, fragile, and inefficient as space cargo. We could flood the solar system with 100 robotic probes for the price of any single manned mission and get back just as useful data. Besides, it turns out space travel is dangerous. Tusk is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe When it came to the recent Artemis II mission, my cynical side didn’t really see the point. Flying around the Moon and back is literally something we did before I was born, and I once owned a Members Only jacket. Apollo 8 circled the Moon ten times and returned to Earth safely the same month that “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was released. What was the point of repeating a feat that far braver people once did with tin foil and slide rules? Yet I’ve surprised myself with how moving I’ve found the Artemis II mission to be. The photos have been stunning. The crew has been professional and engaging. There have been modest but important milestones — the farthest humans have travelled from Earth; the first woman, person of color, and non-American to leave low-Earth orbit; innovations in communication, and more. One thing that really stood out is that this is really NASA at its finest. Not that this is the most important mission they ever pulled off, but they did this in a competent way that celebrated the achievements and kept the crew and the science at the forefront of the project. This wasn’t some billionaire throwing celebrities or cars into orbit as a vanity project — this was a collective effort to send experts in to do a job and come home safely. We don’t see that sort of thing much these days. I’m guessing few people would describe many government agencies as inspiring, but this one counts for me. We’re living through a profoundly anti-science era, in which pathbreaking, lifesaving discoveries like mRNA vaccines are routinely downplayed or even vilified. As I’ve noted previously, this era is something like that of the Red Scare in the 1940s and 50s, in which “egghead” professors were portrayed as out of touch or even hostile to regular Americans. One of the things that helped break that spell was Sputnik — the Soviet communications satellite that demonstrated that the United States was falling behind in crucial scientific research and applications. Its launch triggered a new appreciation for American science and goaded the federal government into supporting research universities and labs. I’m not saying that Artemis is the equivalent of Sputnik, but it potentially reminds people that there’s some value to scientific endeavors and the human faces attached to them. Despite my love for the show “For All Mankind,” I’m far from convinced that there’s any real value to putting colonies on the Moon or Mars that would justify the capital investment and the massive health risks to the astronauts. But sending scientific good will ambassadors on a trip into space once in a while? Bring it. Share
A’s Win Third Straight, Beat Mets 4-0
Quality baseball all around, love to see it
How are North Bay alums doing in college sports?
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URI’s Biomechanics Day event exposes younger students to high-tech science, promotes STEM fields
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International athletes lead Nebraska men’s and women’s tennis
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GHD’s Adrienne Young named to North Bay Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 of 2026
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AROUND BATON ROUGE
The following is a calendar of community events in the Baton Rouge area from Friday through Thursday, April 16.
Around the MHS
The latest news from around the Military Health System for the week of April 6-10, 2026, includes Uniformed Services University research on aggressive tumors, an award for expanding access to mental health care, and a new self-test for HPV.
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Things to do this weekend in Metro Detroit
Concerts, comedy, dance and more are on deck around town this weekend, April 10-12.
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North Bay athletes of the week: Top performers in prep sports around region
Did you catch these standout performances?
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