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Fan World of Warcraft servers face shut down as Blizzard wins Turtle WoW case
Activision Blizzard has won its court case against Turtle WoW, delivering a Cease and Desist order to the World of Warcraft server network.
I replaced my notes app with Gemini’s new Notebooks — and I’m not going back
I was drowning in scattered notes and tabs — this new Gemini feature finally fixed it
Early data promising on RI's evolving behavioral health model
Rhode Island's certified community behavioral health clinics are showing promising results, increasing access and improving outcomes, the author says.
Hawai‘i Might Just Slay Citizens United — And You Can Help
We have the authority — and the responsibility — to get rid of dark money.
'Human minds shouldn't have to go through' this: Artemis II crew recalls unreal moment when Earth disappeared — Space photo of the week
A stunning Earthset image from Artemis II recalls Apollo 8's Earthrise, marking humanity's return to deep space and the start of a new era of exploration.
18 Secret iPhone Features in iOS 26 You Probably Didn't Know Existed
Ready to explore everything that iOS 26 has to offer? We'll be your tour guide.
Ira Winderman: Wins up, seed similar, season sideways for Heat
MIAMI — A better record. A similar play-in seed. But at least less drama, so there’s that. A year ago, when assessing a 37-45 season that delivered the Heat to the No. 10 and final play-in seed, the thought was of a net gain in escaping a half season of Jimmy Butler drama. Now, when assessing a record assured of finishing on the plus side of .500, the question is if the gain is tangible, ...
Pulling Reports, Playing Politics
The CIA’s retraction of intelligence reports should raise concerns about politicization and the Trump administration’s embrace of white supremacist rhetoric.
Does the moon look the same from everywhere on Earth?
The moon's orientation changes quite dramatically across time and between places, largely due to differences in perspective.
Vote for Girls Athlete of the Week for April 4-10 presented by the Vance Law Firm
Cast your vote for the Montgomery Advertiser's Girls Athlete of the Week for April 4-10 presented by the Vance Law Firm.
Young Republicans more skeptical of Iran war, dividing Trump base
Even within Trump’s GOP base, cracks are showing when it comes to the Iran conflict. Younger Republicans are much less likely to support the war.
April baseball means snowflakes and very brave parents
Attending spring sports games in upstate New York often means cold weather. Here's how to stay warm and entertained.
MacBook Neo punches above its weight in Windows 11 gaming test
YouTuber ETA Prime has tested Windows 11 on the MacBook Neo through a virtualization app called Parallels. With full 3D hardware acceleration, the Apple A18 Pro SoC smoothly ran some Windows games on it as well.
Insider: Why are politicians cursing so much lately?
“I think that it is simply because it’s accepted,” one political science professor said of the trend of increased public cursing by politicians.
Tribal and Rural Healthcare at Risk in Oklahoma Gov. Stitt’s Attack on Medicaid
Guest Opinion Oklahoma leaders often visit Cherokee Nation’s Health System and celebrate our progress and tout our unmistakable impact on the health and economy of rural communities. Now, Governor Stitt is putting us on a path that will damage that very system. Recently the Oklahoma legislature passed Oklahoma HB 4440 and HJR 1067 to reverse […]
Columbus Aviators coach, ex-NFL player Ted Ginn Jr. arrested, charged for DUI in Texas
The Aviators are set to play the Dallas Renegades on Sunday, with the team saying that offensive coordinator Todd Haley will step in for that game.
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for April 12 #566
Here's today's Connections: Sports Edition answer and hints for groups. These clues will help you solve The New York Times' popular puzzle game, Connections: Sports Edition, every day.
Staal Nets Number 20 – Hurricanes 4, Mammoth 1
Jordan Staal notched his 20th goal of the season and the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Utah Mammoth, 4-1 on Saturday evening in Salt Lake City. It was Staal’s first 20 goal season in nine years. The Canes have now won three games in a row and they look like they are certainly peaking at the […]
Alexander Ovechkin receives standing ovation from rival Penguins crowd in potential last game in Pittsburgh
Denver defeats Wisconsin to win 11th Frozen Four title
A late goal from Kyle Chyzowski lifted the Pioneers over the Badgers in the NCAA men's hockey championship.
Finley: Trump's college sports order is an overreach
President's executive order on transfer portal, NIL has him meddling where he doesn't belong.
Hidden weak spots in HIV and Ebola revealed with breakthrough nanodisc technology
A new nanodisc-based platform lets scientists study viral proteins in a form that closely mimics real viruses, revealing how antibodies truly recognize them. This approach uncovered hidden interactions in viruses like HIV and Ebola that traditional methods missed. By recreating the virus’s membrane environment, researchers can better understand how immune defenses work. The technique could speed up the development of more effective vaccines.
Life on Mars? Tiny cells just survived shock waves and toxic soil
Mars may be hostile, but it might not be entirely unlivable. In lab experiments, yeast cells survived simulated Martian shock waves and toxic perchlorate salts—two major environmental threats on the Red Planet. Their secret weapon was forming protective molecular clusters that shield critical cellular functions under stress. Without these defenses, survival plummeted, pointing to a potential universal strategy life could use beyond Earth.
Our View: Michigan must stop exporting its mental health crisis
Michigan is sending children hundreds of miles away for mental health treatment because it has failed to build the capacity to care for them at home.
2026 Masters final round tee times, how to watch: Can Rory McIlroy win a second straight green jacket at Augusta National?
Masters 2026: Rory McIlroy faces history or heartbreak on Sunday at Augusta
Masters 2026: Masters 2026: Rory McIlroy faces history or heartbreak on Sunday at Augusta
McIlroy will either become just the fourth player ever to win back-to-back Masters, or will have given up the largest 36-hole lead in tournament history.
Late-Inning Pushes Lift Shenandoah Past Lynchburg in Doubleheader Sweep
The University of Lynchburg softball team dropped both ends of an ODAC doubleheader against Shenandoah on Friday at Moon Field, falling 11-7 in game one and 6-5 in game two.
RFK Jr. Once Touted Raw Milk. Now He’s Stopped Talking About It.
The health secretary has instead promoted whole milk, a politically safer choice, as he seeks to avoid “weird stuff.”
Saturday Sports: The first Watertown girls’ flag football game and more
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Saturday.
Saturday Sports: The first Watertown girls’ flag football game and more
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Saturday.
Masters 2026: Shane Lowry erupts after hitting a hole-in-one Saturday at Augusta National
It marked the second ace Lowry has made at Augusta National.
Masters 2026: Scottie Scheffler gets spicy after Round 3 at Augusta
Scheffler fired a 7-under 65 to get himself back in contention, but wasn't thrilled with some questions after his round.
Spotlighting local women in business
4 share their stories, offer tips for success
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
RDC Hosts Free Business Booster Workshop And Intensive Networking Lunch April 14 At SALA
Visit the post for more.
Masters 2026: Shane Lowry erupts after hitting a hole-in-one on Saturday at Augusta National
It marked the second ace that Lowry has made at Augusta National.
Takeaways From the First Big Gathering of Potential 2028 Democratic Candidates
The National Action Network convention showcased similarities and some differences in a wide open field of possible contenders.
Hornets aim to bounce back in season finale vs. Knicks
After clinching the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference, the New York Knicks are expected to sit a number of key players in their regular-season finale against the visiting Charlotte Hornets on Sunday.
Maryland Curiosity Lab Children’s Business Fair Draws Big Crowd in Severna Park
The Maryland Curiosity Lab’s Children’s Business Fair drew a strong crowd Saturday at Park Plaza in Severna Park, where more than 80 booths filled the event with young entrepreneurs selling everyth…
Laurel: Making a hit at the school science fair
In Brian Nelson's Laurel cartoon, our girl's entry in the school science fair makes a considerable hit.
Tennessee softball ace Karlyn Pickens throws no-hitter in Game 1 win at Kentucky
Tennessee softball ace Karlyn Pickens threw a no-hitter in the Lady Vols' 5-0 win over Kentucky in Game 1 on April 11. Pickens had 12 strikeouts.
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games starting tonight
Brewers' Double-A affiliate competes in Southern League
Artemis II was a product of politics. Then it sent us over the Moon
In both 1968 and 2026, a mission to the Moon offered a refreshing blast of positivity for a conflict-ridden world. So what's different now — and what do we really gain from this new moonshot, five decades after the first?
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games in 2026
The Biloxi Shuckers and Gray Media Inc. will continue their TV partnership for the 2026 season, with 15 games airing throughout Mississippi and Louisiana on the Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network.
Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network to air 15 Biloxi Shuckers games in 2026
The Biloxi Shuckers and Gray Media Inc. will continue their TV partnership for the 2026 season, with 15 games airing throughout Mississippi and Louisiana on the Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network.
What the NC Azalea Festival Street Fair looked like in Wilmington
The N.C. Azalea Festival Street Fair in Wilmington featured live entertainment, a performing arts stage, children's activities and vendors.
Packers trade WR Dontayvion Wicks to Eagles for draft picks
Babies too young for MMR vaccine become ‘sitting ducks’ in measles outbreaks
Babies too young to be vaccinated are among the most vulnerable in a measles outbreak and depend entirely on herd immunity.
ENTERTAINMENT: WAC hosts Australian Chamber Orchestra
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is premiering “Horizon,” a new work it commissioned from Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, on its current tour. It includes an 8 p.m. concert Saturday at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center
I changed my embarrassing Gmail username without losing anything, and you can too
Google now lets Gmail users switch to a new address while keeping the old one as an alias — here's how!
New to The Street to Broadcast on Fox Business on Monday, April 13, Featuring Virtuix Holdings...
The show will air as sponsored programming nationwide at 10:30 PM PST on Fox Business Network
New to The Street to Broadcast on Fox Business on Monday, April 13, Featuring Virtuix Holdings...
The show will air as sponsored programming nationwide at 10:30 PM PST on Fox Business Network
New to The Street to Broadcast on Fox Business on Monday, April 13, Featuring Virtuix Holdings...
The show will air as sponsored programming nationwide at 10:30 PM PST on Fox Business Network
Rhode Island Marijuana Business License Lottery Blocked By Federal Judge Amid Challenge To Residency Rules
“Knowing the Act was facing legal challenges…CCC continued forward with its plan to implement the Act and its licensing scheme. The resulting fall-out will be, to be blunt, self-inflicted.” By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Currant Nearly 100 applicants vying for 20 new cannabis retail licenses that were supposed to be awarded via lottery as soon […]
Who were Montgomery area high school sports top performers for April 6-10
A list of this week's top performers in high school sports in the Montgomery area from games played Monday through Friday, April 6-10.
$10,000 bounty on the implementation of rollback netcode for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 placed by Maximilian Dood
It's been nearly 15 years since Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was released on November 15, 2011. Funnily enough, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was released about nine months after Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (February 15, 2011), which spawned ...
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
High school sports a big focus
Sports reporter Brian Calloway is among the busiest people at the LSJ almost anytime of the year. That's especially true this time of year.
High school sports a big focus
Sports reporter Brian Calloway is among the busiest people at the LSJ almost anytime of the year. That's especially true this time of year.
Memorial Hermann and BCBSTX reach a new deal, restoring in-network coverage, hospital says
The Houston-based health system and the insurance giant had previously let an April 1 deadline pass without a new agreement, meaning many patients across the region were forced to pay higher medical costs or find new doctors.
Radical Rob demonstrates fun science experiments on 'Fox & Friends Weekend'
Mad Science NYC & Westchester's chief mad scientist Rob Diaz demonstrates home experiments with the hosts of 'Fox & Friends Weekend.'
Where to watch Athletics vs. New York Mets: Live stream, start time, TV channel, odds for Saturday, April 11
The Athletics and Mets continue their series in New York on Saturday.
Where to Watch Boston Red Sox vs St. Louis Cardinals Live Stream, TV Channel for Saturday, April 11, 2026
The Red Sox and Cardinals continue their series in St. Louis on Saturday.
Weekend at the Masters brings experience few sporting events can match
A weekend at the Masters Tournament cannot be matched by any other sporting event on the planet, writes Loran Smith.
Microbial hockey: Scientists discover how bacteria rotate tiny pucks
At the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Jérémie Palacci's research group is venturing into metallurgy—albeit with a twist. Instead of traditional tools, the scientists use E. coli bacteria, ...
I found a new meteor shower — and it comes from an asteroid getting baked to bits by the sun
A NASA researcher in planetary sciences explains how he discovered a new meteor shower linked to a disintegrating asteroid.
2026 NFL mock draft 8.1: Cardinals surprise with their picks (yes, plural), while Giants take a weapon at No. 5
Engadget review recap: ASUS ZenBook A16, AirPods Max 2, Sonos Play and LG Sound Suite
A roundup of the latest reviews from Engadget.
PS6 Pricing: 41% of Digital Foundry Viewers Would Pay $699 or More for a Next-Gen PlayStation
Over 50,000 people respond to our poll.
Heartland Sports on The Breakfast Show 4/11
Heartland Sports on The Breakfast Show 4/11
Social media erupts after Harris introduces 'mob boss' accent to attack Trump: 'Total cringe'
Kamala Harris impersonated Donald Trump as a mob boss while criticizing his foreign policy at a National Action Network event, sparking online backlash.
“As of January 2026… Drew Murray is now working on the StarCraft shooter” — this report could be the clearest sign yet that the project is moving forward
Fresh insight into Blizzard’s StarCraft shooter suggests experienced talent is being assembled, with Drew Murray of the now closed The Initiative joining as associative design director.
Healthy Baby Network to host 3rd Annual Black Maternal Health Walkathon
Greece, N.Y. — Healthy Baby Network will host its 3rd Annual Black Maternal Health Walkathon on Saturday at The Mall at Greece Ridge, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.The e
Major Wolverhampton genetics study targets community health gaps
A study invites Pakistani and Bangladeshi residents in Wolverhampton to help improve health care.
The Climate Issue: The blue marble, then and now
Our planetary-affairs editor, Oliver Morton, looks at the connection between space travel and climate science
From hooves to scales: Vet Fest showcases animal science at Auburn
Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine (AUVCM) hosted its third annual Vet Fest on April 11 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Located at their campus on Wire Road, this free, family-friendly event invites the entire Auburn community to learn and see what the college of veterinary medicine does. With plenty of educational and hands-on activities, Vet Fest aims to both educate and entertain its guests.
OPINION: Gen Z’s political frustrations are causing an analog counterculture
Gen Z’s frustrations with political polarization and life in the digital world have led to a new counterculture. In seeking to divert from the mainstream, they have popularized rock music, tangible media, and analog systems. This pattern is as old as time, though its most unique aspect is the technological regression in the effort to be more present.
AI for breakup texts? How 'sycophantic' chatbots are messing with our ability to handle difficult social situations.
Overly agreeable AI responses to interpersonal issues could mess with human moral perspectives.
St. Mary’s County Students Earn Top Honors At Prince George’s Regional Science Fair, Advance To International Competition
St. Mary’s County students earned three Grand Awards at the Prince George’s Regional Science Fair, with one student advancing to international competition.
The Growth of the Upper Middle Class, a Focus on Sperm Health and the Workers Shunning AI | WSJ Weekend Reads for April 11
Plus, a focus on sperm health, the workers shunning AI and making golf a family affair
How a moon mission and a phone call could help relieve trade tensions
The mission inspired goodwill by phone from the president at a time when Michigan and its largest trading partner have been stuck in a war of words.
Oregon's Dante Moore a model for mental health advocacy, teammates say
Oregon QB Dante Moore sent a letter to the governor about his mental health struggles and the need for services. His teammates praise his advocacy.
Science news this week: Artemis II splashes down, the world's fattest parrot bounces back, and the Shroud of Turin is contaminated
April 11, 2026: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Who's in 2026 NHL playoffs? Latest bracket, standings, clinching scenarios
The NHL playoff field could grow from nine to 14 during the league's 15-game schedule Saturday. Here's a look at the latest playoff bracket:
2026 NFL Draft rankings: David Bailey tops list of best Edge prospects
Here's a look at the best available Edge prospects in the 2026 NFL Draft, as ranked by USA TODAY Sports.
Lima Ridge Elementary principal honored for STEM education leadership
Lima Ridge Elementary Principal Kurt Scheiderer received an award for his commitment to building a strong STEM culture.