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Results for " The Difference " 155 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle

Computer Science Grad Helps Develop AI System to Track Bee Pollen

On the edge of the Arboretum and Botanical Garden at Cal State Fullerton, honeybees return to their hive carrying tiny packets of pollen, a protein source that can mean the difference between a thriving colony and a collapse. But the warning signs are easy to miss. Class of 2026 computer science grad Kshitij Pingle is […]

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May 15 • 3:05 PM EDT • Science • news.fullerton.edu
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Andrew Abbott leaned into some science to get his season back on track

Andrew Abbott locked in on the stick-figure graphic of himself. The world of biomechanics is very advanced. But with Abbott going through the worst rut of his big league career, he opened up to some new ideas to get himself back on track. He asked for some help, and he leaned into some sports science. He said the stick figures made it clear, and he credits biomechanics for helping him get his season back on track. Over his last three starts, he has allowed two total runs in 17 ⅔ innings. “There’s a photo of (me) last year and the year before on a graph, and this year is in a different color,” Abbott said. “You see where you are in comparison to that. Where the hands are at this moment, where your feet are, where the knee is, where your head is at, where your shoulders are at, it breaks it all down if you want it.” When Abbott saw his mechanics in this objective way, he recognized exactly what had been going wrong. “When my tempo, my feet and my hands are aligned, then normally my mechanics are sound,” Abbott said. “And when my mechanics are sound, my stuff behaves normally. The fastball is jumpy. I’m up in velo. My extension is better.” Abbott said that he started diving more into his biomechanics in the middle of April. The Reds have a biomechanics team, which works closely with pitching coach Derek Johnson and hitting coach Chris Valaika. Leading the group is biomecahnics manager Franky Mulloy. “I laugh every day,” Francona said. “When Franky starts talking, I start laughing. I remind him to know his audience.” Francona isn’t a scientist. The Reds’ manager jokes about his own comprehension of the data. But it’s easy for him to recognize the value that the biomechanics team is providing. “That’s why we got them,” Francona said. Abbott said that he had his first big biomechanics-oriented meeting in the middle of April. Behind the scenes, there was already a lot of communication going on within the Reds’ staff. “Franky calculates all the things, builds it into these graphs, and DJ gets them,” Abbott said. “They have their internal communication. Then, we go to them and ask what about this or that. The main thing for me is arm angle.” The data shows Abbott how his arm angle evolves from start to start. He hasn’t meant to change it. But just like all of us, our posture might be different from one day to the next. Pitchers’ arm angles can make minor shifts without the pitcher or even coaches noticing. But the data can’t miss a change like that. Abbott recognized that his arm angle had been moving around without him noticing. Now, he checks in with the data to make sure that his mechanics are in sync. “They get into these cool looking graphs,” Abbott said. “I can’t really describe them. I don’t know what they are. But for me, it’s a photo of a stick figure of myself.” The stick figure of his current positioning is superimposed over previous versions of himself. With that format, Abbott can compare his mechanics on any given day to what they were when he was pitching at his very best. “It was very noticeable from the moment I saw this year as black compared to two years ago and last year, it was very, very different,” Abbott said. “I could see with my eyes without having to ask any questions about the difference in the photos.” For any pitcher, there are a lot of moving pieces in your delivery. For Abbott to be the best version of himself, he needs his head, his arm, his hand, his knee and his feet to be on the right “tempo.” “Tempo is a word I’ve used a lot,” Abbott said. “Getting everything in certain areas working together.” He has been much better at that recently. The data backs that up, and so does Abbott’s ERA. The biomechanics data has also given the Reds’ staff and Abbott some better ideas for some training that he can do between starts. He has added drills to shore up areas of his body that Abbott needed to make stronger. “They make a plan based off what they see,” Abbott said. “If things start changing, we know what to revert back to.” Overall, Abbott says that he’s not a very analytical guy. There’s so much information out there, and he says that it’s important for him to not get too analytical when he breaks down his specific pitches. He has learned the value of being “analytical about mechanics.” And the way that the Reds presented that information to him made it easier for him to make the right adjustments without being overloaded by information. “It was a very simple fix,” Abbott said. “It took a long time to finally get there, feel the results and see it. But for the most part, it was very simple to apply it.”

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May 15 • 8:29 AM EDT • Science • charlieschalkboard.substack.com
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What Are The Differences Between The Ford And GM 10-Speed Automatic Transmissions?

Ford and GM 10-speed automatic transmissions share the same core architecture, but they use different fluids, software, and even some internal parts.

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May 10 • 8:05 AM EDT • Technology • jalopnik.com
Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 14 Coming Soon

Ladder Season 14 begins on May 22. Glean the differences coming with Patch 3.2 based off your feedback from our recent PTR.

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May 8 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • news.blizzard.com
Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 14 Coming Soon

Ladder Season 14 begins on May 22. Glean the differences coming with Patch 3.2 based off your feedback from our recent PTR.

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May 8 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • news.blizzard.com
The Science of Workplace Behavior

When performance issues look like people problems, they’re often really system problems—and this post shows how to spot the difference before you try to fix the wrong thing.

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May 8 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • psychologytoday.com
Mozilla says AI helped squash 423 Firefox security bugs

Yet it remains unclear if Anthropic's uber model was effective, or if better model middleware is what makes the difference

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May 7 • 7:32 PM EDT • Technology • theregister.com
Diet pills, the '90s and why the GLP-1 craze is worrying some experts

Diet pills fueled the thin beauty standard in the 1990s. Are GLP-1 pills sending us back in time? Experts share the differences and concerns.

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Apr 30 • 8:01 AM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
RM Science Bowl triumphs with most successful season in recent history

Someone slams the buzzer, but the molecular biology question has only been half-read. With just enough confidence to risk it all, they answer, knowing that it could make the difference between winning and losing the match. Science Bowl is a fast paced competition for high schoolers sponsored by the Department of Energy that tests students’...

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Apr 28 • 9:51 PM EDT • Science • thermtide.com
Poll: Florida voters like Ron DeSantis more than Donald Trump. Independents make the difference.

The man in Tallahassee has 54% backing among NPA voters, while the man in the White House is at 33% with the same group.

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Apr 25 • 11:13 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com
Blackstone hits back against private credit doubters

Blackstone saw $37 billion in private credit inflows, even as retail investors cut back. Its blaming social media and the press for the difference.

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Apr 23 • 12:30 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Another ‘hallucinated’ court filing highlights the difference between Silicon Valley and the rest of the world

We may have just witnessed the most egregious instance of workslop to date, and it’s one that matters — and not only because it’s objectively funny.

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Apr 23 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com
A game of split-second decisions: Putting health and human performance to the test

When athletes step onto the field, reacting a fraction of a second too late can be the difference between making a play and sustaining an injury. At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, faculty in the Department of Health and Human Performance (HHP) are studying what drives those split-second decisions and how sleep, mental health and cognitive processing affect performance and injury risk.

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Apr 20 • 9:15 AM EDT • Health • blog.utc.edu
UCLA battling against letup in middle of spring practices

This week features spring practices six through eight, and Bob Chesney noticed a dip in energy. The difference first became apparent on Tuesday, in small but noticeable ways.

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Apr 16 • 4:54 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
AirPods Max 2 Review: A Bigger Upgrade Than You Think

You might not be able to tell the difference between the AirPods Max 2 and the originals at a glance, but the internal upgrades are a big deal.

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Apr 15 • 12:17 PM EDT • Technology • bgr.com
Scientists were wrong about lifespan. Your genes matter way more than we thought

For years, scientists believed our lifespan was mostly shaped by environment and chance, with genetics playing only a minor role. But a new study from the Weizmann Institute flips that idea on its head, revealing that genes may actually account for about half of the differences in how long people live. By analyzing massive twin datasets—including twins raised apart—and using innovative simulations to filter out deaths from accidents and other external causes, researchers uncovered a hidden genetic influence that had been masked for decades.

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Apr 12 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
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

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Apr 11 • 4:39 PM EDT • Business • oswegocountybusiness.com
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“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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Apr 11 • 11:38 AM EDT • Technology • natesilver.net
Adaptive sports program visits Southern Arizona P.E. classes, wheelchairs in tow

When her class moved outside for P.E., special education teacher Tiffani Jaseph saw the excitement. After coaches and players from Adaptive Sports In Schools, or ASIS, unloaded dozens of wheelchairs at Copper View Elementary in the Sahuarita School District, they told students about racing the chairs and playing wheelchair basketball. Jaseph saw the difference in […]

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Apr 10 • 9:00 AM EDT • Sports • azluminaria.org
The Blogs: The Difference Between Ideological “Research” and Evidence-Based Science

From the blog of Monique Dietvorst at The Times of Israel

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Apr 7 • 12:11 AM EDT • Science • blogs.timesofisrael.com
Apple Continues Promoting iOS 26 and macOS 26 Liquid Glass With Updated Design Gallery

Apple is continuing to highlight the Liquid Glass aesthetic that it introduced in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26. The company has shared an updated Liquid Glass Design Gallery that shows off Liquid Glass in third-party apps. The visual gallery features several iPhone and iPad apps, with screenshots that show the difference between app design in iOS 18 and iOS 26.

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Apr 6 • 7:14 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
USA's Folarin Balogun Scores In Monaco's Win Over Rival Marseille

U.S. men's national team striker Folarin Balogun scored the difference-making goal as Monaco defeated rival Marseille, 2-1.

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Apr 6 • 6:46 PM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com
Nintendo has made some changes to Mario user icons in latest Switch 2 and Switch update

A little interesting discovery has been made regarding the recent Switch 2 and Switch update, as Nintendo made some changes to a number of Mario icons. It looks like for the first batch, new renders are being used. The differences can be a bit hard to spot, but they are present. Here’s a look (version 21.2.0 on the left, version...

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Apr 3 • 12:29 PM EDT • Technology • nintendoeverything.com
Growing Smarter: PVAMU study explores science behind stronger plants

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (Apr. 2, 2026) — From backyard gardens to large-scale farms, how plants grow can make all the difference. A Prairie View A&M University researcher is taking a closer look at that process and how it could help crops become more productive and resilient. Dr. Tesfamichael Kebrom, a research scientist in the College […]

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Apr 2 • 12:04 PM EDT • Science • pvamu.edu
Why are the same women's basketball teams in Final Four? The answer is money

Parity is rising in women's college basketball, but it hasn't reached the top as the same teams are in the Final Four. Spending is the difference.

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Mar 31 • 7:03 AM EDT • Sports • usatoday.com
Video: Super Mario Bros. Wonder Side-By-Side Graphics Comparison (Switch & Switch 2)

Spot the difference

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Mar 27 • 10:00 PM EDT • Technology • nintendolife.com
Good Sports: Clovis North pitchers learning from former Bulldog, MLB pitcher

It's the first season former major league pitcher Matt Garza is coaching the Broncos pitchers, and the team can already tell the difference.

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Mar 27 • 8:12 PM EDT • Sports • abc30.com
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Penguins win shootout, back in second place

With just 11 games to go, every win or loss could make the difference between a Stanley Cup Playoffs berth or bitterly watching them from home.

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Mar 26 • 11:19 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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MacBook Neo just fine with 4K video editing and 59 Chrome tabs

Sam Henri Gold last week wrote a rather sweet blog post about the difference between advice from tech reviewers and...

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Mar 18 • 8:16 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com
Apple Studio Display XDR vs. Apple Studio Display (2026): What's the Difference?

Apple’s 2026 display shakeup replaces the elite 32-inch 6K Pro Display XDR with a 27-inch 5K Studio Display XDR, while also updating the standard Studio Display. Here’s how Apple's two new creator monitors stack up.

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Mar 8 • 6:15 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com
On the Farm, the Hidden Climate Cost of America’s Broken Health Care System

American farmers are drowning in health insurance costs, while their German counterparts never worry about medical bills. The difference may help determine which country's small farms are better prepared for a changing climate.

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Mar 6 • 4:55 AM EST • Health • insideclimatenews.org
Resident Evil Requiem Endings Explained

Resident Evil Requiem has two endings, but what's the difference between them, and which one is canon? We explain it all.

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Mar 1 • 7:00 AM EST • Technology • ign.com
This doctor is training AI to do her job. And it’s a booming business

AI models are trained on massive amounts of data. But that training doesn’t do much good without what’s known as “reinforcement learning,” a process that involves human experts teaching models the differences between good and bad responses.

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Feb 17 • 3:00 AM EST • Business • cnn.com
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Bonnabel and Riverdale decided the district title, and a ‘four-year guy’ made the difference

It was crunch time, with a lot on the line. However, Bonnabel senior guard Thomas Molette was in his comfort zone.

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Feb 14 • 11:23 AM EST • Sports • nola.com
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Downhill skiing’s biggest hurdle? Friction.

How skis meet snow be the difference between winning gold or silver.

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Feb 13 • 3:00 PM EST • Science • popsci.com
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Sony WF-1000XM6: New wireless earbuds star in comparison photos before official release

Sony will be releasing its WF-1000XM6 earbuds on February 12. In the meantime, The Walkman Blog has posted comparison photos highlighting the differences between the WF-1000XM6 and its two direct predecessors.

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Feb 11 • 6:40 AM EST • Technology • notebookcheck.net
What Are The Differences Between Honda's K20 And K24 Engines?

The differences between Honda's K20 and K24 engines concern their size and power. The K24 is larger and generally has more horsepower.

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Feb 7 • 6:25 PM EST • Technology • jalopnik.com
The essential first-hire checklist for small businesses

Hiring your first employee is a major milestone, and being prepared makes all the difference. In this episode of Small Business Smarts, go through the essential steps every business owner should complete before making that first hire. For more, visit ADP.com/SPARK

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Feb 3 • 8:02 AM EST • Business • mediacenter.adp.com
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South African pediatric cardiologist joins Manning Family Children's in New Orleans

"I've been very fortunate to be able to make the differences that I've been able to make," Dr. Russel Hirsch said. "And hope to continue that."

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Jan 30 • 1:00 PM EST • Health • nola.com
Grant powers innovation in the science of freezing

We all know the difference between water and ice is a drop in temperature, but...

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Jan 27 • 2:11 PM EST • Science • boisestate.edu
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Daniil Medvedev's new outlook fuels Australian Open comeback

After the season he's coming off, 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev is celebrating his run to the third round at the Australian Open as positive progress. The difference, he said, comes down to mentality.

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Jan 21 • 3:08 AM EST • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Windows 11 Home vs. Windows 11 Pro: I compared both versions, and here's my upgrade advice

Windows 11 Pro gives you greater control over settings, but is it worth the extra cost? I break down the differences between the two systems.

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Jan 17 • 7:00 PM EST • Technology • zdnet.com
National Association of Women Business Owners EPIC awards return

EPIC awards celebrate and acknowledge the difference that women business owners and entrepreneurs make to their community and those around them.

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Jan 11 • 6:30 PM EST • Business • wlky.com
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The perfect way to look after your health if you work shifts

There are many knock-on effects of working nights or early mornings, and often employers could do more to protect staff. But there are small, simple changes that can make all the difference

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Jan 2 • 6:00 AM EST • Health • theguardian.com
Time runs faster on Mars and scientists just proved it

Thanks to Einstein’s relativity, time flows differently on Mars than on Earth. NIST scientists have now nailed down the difference, showing that Mars clocks tick slightly faster—and fluctuate over the Martian year. These microsecond shifts could play a big role in future Mars navigation, communications, and even a solar-system-wide internet. It’s a small time gap with big consequences for space exploration.

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Dec 30, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Jobs can be saved in Sydney Ashes Test

There are no dead rubbers in the Ashes and the difference between 4-1 or 3-2 could be significant for both England and Australia, writes Glenn McGrath.

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Dec 29, 2025 • 2:20 AM EST • Sports • bbc.com
FPL GW18 Player Picks: Top Fantasy Options for This Week

Gameweek 18 is fast approaching, and Fantasy Premier League managers have very little time to make their moves. With fixtures coming thick and fast, choosing the right players could make all the difference. This article highlights players with the most promising runs of matches heading into Gameweek 18 and points out the options worth considering […]

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Dec 23, 2025 • 5:23 AM EST • Sports • nevermanagealone.com
N.Y. comptroller candidate's report decries DiNapoli's managing of pension fund

It claims the fees paid out to hundreds of Wall Street managers have underperformed, forcing taxpayers to make up the difference.

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Dec 22, 2025 • 7:47 PM EST • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
Jesuit and De La Salle play their usual pre-Christmas game, and defense makes the difference

De La Salle and Jesuit commonly play basketball against each other on the Saturday before Christmas, and in most seasons, that is the only matchup between the schools.

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Dec 20, 2025 • 9:26 PM EST • Sports • nola.com
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Takeaways: Details Make the Difference in Flyers Loss to Sabres
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Dec 19, 2025 • 1:46 PM EST • Sports • thehockeynews.com
Sticker Shock: Obamacare Customers Confront Premium Spikes as Congress Dithers

With subsidies that give consumers extra help paying their health insurance premiums set to expire, lawmakers are again debating the Affordable Care Act. The difference this time: It’s happening in the middle of ACA open enrollment.

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Dec 12, 2025 • 5:00 AM EST • Health • kffhealthnews.org
The art and science of failing well

There’s bad failure — the kind we ignore or hide — and good failure, which becomes data for future progress. Three experts discuss how to tell the difference.

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Dec 10, 2025 • 9:00 AM EST • Science • bigthink.com
Take Vitamin D at the Right Time, Try Ginger Tea for Blood Pressure—and 3 More Health Tips

This week, learn when to take Vitamin D, the difference between collagen and gelatin, and the best supplements for yourage.

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Dec 8, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Health • verywellhealth.com
Here's how to create a stronger mental health care system

The difference now, versus 30 years ago, is that we know what works — we know the solutions.

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Dec 1, 2025 • 6:59 AM EST • Health • minnesotareformer.com
What's the difference between a newt and a salamander?

Salamanders and newts are both long-tailed amphibians, but what's the difference between them?

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Nov 30, 2025 • 5:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com