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⚠️ Concern for Mbappé! Not training with the squad after eyebrow stitches
Real Madrid completed training this Sunday with an absence that raised alarm bells, although the club is conveying complete calm. According to several media outlets, Kylian Mbappé did not go out onto...
Cowboys news: Dallas could still hit the veteran trade market
Your Sunday morning Cowboys news.
New York Jets Flight Connections 04/12/26
Happy Sunday, Jets fans! Here are your links for the last day of this April weekend. Nick Faria – Jets have another potential trade partner in the first round Nick Faria – One line from scout highlights Jets’ real draft ‘plan’ Stefan Stelling – Slipping WR prospect could fall into Jets’ laps at No. 16 […]
New York Giants land 'surprise' defender in latest CBS Sports mock draft
In the latest CBS Sports mock draft, the New York Giants pass on commonly projected prospects in favor of a "surprise" defender.
Falcons projected starting defense with player grades
Projecting the Falcons starting lineup on defense with player grades
The most important Democratic health care debate is raging again
Single payer is getting a second wind.
Bengals’ mid-round targets hinted with latest NFL draft visit
Another Bengals visit hints at what the team might want to do in the second round and beyond.
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, ...
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.
3 big questions for Tennessee quarterback battle after spring practice
Josh Heupel spoke in the future tense about the Tennessee quarterback competition. He needs to see more development. Here are factors to consider.
Why reopening the Strait of Hormuz won’t be enough to solve shipping woes and high oil prices
Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is proving to be difficult. But even if the vital waterway fully opens and oil and other necessary cargo sail out, it won’t be enough to return things to normal.
Yankees news: Boone angry with ABS failures
Yanks worst in baseball at challenges; bottom of lineup a Problem; farewell to Winquest; RIP to an old-timer.
SPFL prepare for Old Firm play-off
The Scottish Professional Football League is preparing for a potential Old Firm Premiership play-off should the title race end in a deadlock between Rangers and Celtic. Daily Record) Lawrence Shankland looks increasingly likely to stay at Heart of Midlothian until the end of the 30-year-old Scotland striker's current contract despite long-standing interest in his signature from Rangers. (Football Insider)
The Daily Hilario: Sunday
Your daily dose of off-topic shenanigans
Sunderland vs Tottenham Hotspur – Match preview and team news
Roberto De Zerbi makes his Premier League return as Tottenham Hotspur visit Sunderland at the Stadium of Light today.The Italian manager replaces Igor Tudor after a dismal run left Spurs one point abo...
Chris Bell NFL Draft Profile
Doug watches the college film to assess Chris Bell's strengths and weaknesses as well as what it likely means for his NFL future.
Sooo ... About Last Night
Last night (Sat., April 11, 2026), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) ventured forth to Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida for UFC 327. Was this the deepest numbered event since UFC 300? Maybe Jon Anik was onto something! There were great fights from top to bottom, like Kelvin Gastelum vs. Vicente Luque on the early “Prelims” card. […]
Captain Clutch completes comeback, Mariners walkoff Astros 8-7
Mariners comeback from 5-run deficit
Scottie Scheffler blitzed Augusta National. And then a reporter's question
Scottie Scheffler played his best-ever Masters round on Saturday.
Christmas Vacation and Congress: 'We're all in misery' amid the ongoing DHS shutdown
Fox News' Chad Pergram discusses Congress' prolonged DHS shutdown and the risky tactics associated with it as political divisions threaten deeper government funding crises.
UFC signs Gable Steveson, announces debut date
It's seemed inevitable, but Gable Steveson is headed to the UFC.
Atlanta Braves’ Walt Weiss Shares Spencer Strider Injury Update
Spencer Strider received an important update on Saturday.
Scientists Finally Crack the 100-Million-Year Evolutionary Mystery of Squid and Cuttlefish
Genomic analysis reveals squid and cuttlefish evolved in deep oceans, survived mass extinction in refuges, and later rapidly diversified, following a “long fuse” evolutionary pattern.
UFC 327 live blog: Jiri Prochazka vs. Carlos Ulberg
Jiri Prochazka and Carlos Ulberg battle for a vacant UFC title in UFC 327 main event
Dodgers home runs back Emmet Sheehan to beat Rangers
Dodgers 6, Nimmo 3
Women’s Basketball: Utah G Avery Hjelmstad commits to TCU
The Horned Frogs have now added four players through the portal.
GameChannel: Live Scores & Updates
Check out matchups and games, live scores, updates, results, top performers and team comparisons for your favorite sports and fantasy leagues.
White Sox Minor League Update: April 11, 2026
Bham walks it off to bring home the only win in the system
See How the Brewers Suffered Another Loss
The Milwaukee Brewers' skid has extended to four games, and a common theme continues to plague them.
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.
Flyers Postgame Blog: Statement Win; Vladar Bounces Back; Vintage Couturier
The Philadelphia Flyers made a statement on Saturday. It was a dominating 7-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets that lowered […] The post Flyers Postgame Blog: Statement Win; Vladar Bounces Back; Vintage Couturier appeared first on Philly Hockey Now.
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 […]
Iowa women's basketball lands All-SEC transfer portal guard
Iowa women's basketball picked up its first impact player out of the transfer portal, landing first-team All-SEC guard Dani Carnegie.
Jarred Vanderbilt talks about incident with Lakers coach JJ Redick
Jarred Vanderbilt seems like he has put his heated interaction with Lakers coach JJ Redick in the past.
Lakers release injury report for Sunday's game versus Jazz
The Lakers have released their injury report for their regular-season finale on Sunday versus the Jazz.
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.
110,000-year-old discovery rewrites human history: Neanderthals and Homo sapiens worked together
The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioral innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.
Milwaukee Marathon proves healthy way to deal with college stress
Three college students ran the Milwaukee half marathon together, dressed up as the cutest of cows, as a way to run off stress.
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.
Local youth science fair winners to compete in Canada-wide fair next month
Hundreds of Grade 5-12 students gathered at the Olympic Oval on Saturday for the final day of the Calgary Youth Science Fair, which named 17 finalists, who will compete in the national fair next month...
Fury dominates Makhmudov and calls out Joshua next
Tyson Fury marks his return to the heavyweight mix with a composed points win over Arslanbek Makhmudo, before immediately turning ringside to call out Anthony Joshua.
Cameron Young had a Saturday rally at the Masters
Cameron Young had an incredible rally on Saturday at the Masters
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.
Role reversal: Phillies 4, Diamondbacks 3
Almost the exact same scenario as last night played out, only in reverse
Forget Masters leaderboard, Scottie Scheffler still biggest threat to Rory
Scottie Scheffler, the world's No. 1 golfer, made a significant comeback in the Masters third round, challenging Rory McIlroy.
Trump wants to paint a White House office building with ‘magic paint.’ Experts advise against it
President Donald Trump privately advocated for painting an ornate federal office building next to the White House with a “magic paint with silicate,” CNN has learned. But ahead of a key vote on exterior changes to the sprawling Gilded Age structure, a panel of experts is warning the so-called magic paint could be incompatible with the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s granite exterior.
Seniors: Carol Watson, 72
Owner of Carol Watson Greenhouse and Landscaping in LaFayette enjoys her growing business — still puts in six-, seven-day weeks By Mary Beth Roach Carol Watson, the owner of Carol Watson Greenhouse and Landscaping, has been in gardens since she could walk. Literally. She said she learned to walk in her grandfather’s garden, which was next door to her current home and business in LaFayette. Today, at 72, she is running the business that her mother, Claire, opened in 1981 as Watson Greenhouse. Watson worked part-time for her mom until 1990, when she joined her full time. While she may not have had any formal horticultural experience, she said she learned so much about growing and raising plants from her mom, who had an abundance of energy and talent. Now, after 35 years in the business full time, Watson has no plans to retire, although she joked that she’d like a couple of days off a week. On her seven-acre site, complete with four greenhouses, Watson said her favorite parts of the job are working with and educating her customers; helping some of her young customers build terrariums; conducting occasional class field trips; and supporting local art by decorating the shop with an eclectic mix of pottery from at least four area craftspeople. A one-time employee of the former Dey Bros. department store in Syracuse, Watson said she loves merchandising and enjoys displaying unique pieces of art on shelves and even suspending from ceilings. “We’re creative. We also had top quality plants. We got a reputation of quality plants and unusual products,” she said. It’s tending to her customers and her plants, showcasing the unusual products, and hosting special events to benefit the community that keep her motivated to work six to seven days a week. “I just love it. I love taking care of the plants. I’m one of the few people that really enjoys watering,” she said. And while she has cultivated a solid customer base over the years, she remains savvy in her marketing efforts to draw in new customers. For example, she does a gardening segment on CNY Central television; her active Facebook page has thousands of followers; and she hosts a number of unique events and classes that not only introduce her shop to potential new clients, but some benefit nonprofits as well. About 13 years ago, when the local symphony orchestra was struggling, she said she wanted to help. So, partnering with the group, she began offering concerts, called Soirees, featuring the Syracuse Orchestra’s string quartet. Following up on a suggestion from a customer whose brother is a deejay in retirement, specializing in sock hops, she hosted the greenhouse’s first sock hop. Plants got moved back toward the walls to make room for dancing; a caterer was brought in, offering diner-like food; guests came in period outfits; and proceeds went to the Food Bank of CNY. She is excited about doing it again in October. Via her website, she promotes the greenhouse as an “oasis in the snow,” offering visitors the opportunity to pick up some decorating and gift ideas while taking in the floral and citrus scents. And she also caters to her four-legged friends. Over this past winter, she said, she came up with a “brilliant idea,” although at the time she didn’t appreciate just how brilliant it would become. Feeling it too cold outside to take her dog for a walk, she opted to bring it into the greenhouse. And before long, she was inviting people to bring their dogs into the big greenhouse as well. She looks forward to extending that invitation again this upcoming winter season. For Watson and her customers, the greenhouse is always in season.
Tribute show to feature Beatles, Stones
Beatles vs. Stones tribute show will take the stage April 16 at the Capitol Arts Complex in Rome with music from both iconic bands.
Ways the Golden Knights Can Clinch a Playoff Berth Tonight
The Vegas Golden Knights enter Saturday with a long-awaited opportunity to clinch a playoff berth, capping a season defined several […]
Patriots host potential backup quarterback on pre-draft visit
Jalon Daniels projects as a late-round pick or rookie free agent in this year’s NFL Draft.
Cleveland Browns NFL Draft Profile: RB Cash Jones, Georgia
Are the Browns considering this Bulldog as the newest member of the Dawg Pound?
Green Bay Packers 2025 run defense review: What went wrong
Part 1 of 2 reviewing the Packers 2025 defense.
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.
NFL Draft Scouting Report: Romello Height, EDGE, Texas Tech
Height is a true designated pass-rusher, which comes with positives and negatives.
Iraq elects Kurdish politician Nizar Amidi as president amid Iran war fallout
Iraq's parliament voted Saturday to elect Nizar Amidi as president, five months after a parliamentary election that didn't produce a decisive majority.
Colorado transfer G Isaiah Johnson commits to Texas
The Longhorns land one of the most coveted guards in the portal.
Rockstar Games has confirmed it was hit by third-party data breach
The ShinyHunters hacking group is giving Rockstar Games until April 14 to respond to its threats.
Crash Ends Heim’s $500K Bid at Bristol
Multi-truck incident with 70 laps left derails Triple Truck Challenge sweep
Packers trade WR Dontayvion Wicks to Eagles for draft picks
Markquese Bell arrested, Cowboys safety facing drug possession charges
Cowboys safety Markquese Bell was arrested on both felony and misdemeanor drug charges. Here's what to know about his arrest.
Chicago Cubs Rumors: Insider Addresses Likelihood of Lucas Giolito Signing
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.
Watch: Crusaders thump Ports to move off bottom
Watch highlights as XX beat XX in the Irish Premiership.
Appeals court says Trump White House ballroom construction can proceed for now
A federal appeals court said Saturday that President Donald Trump can move ahead for another week with construction of a massive new White House ballroom while judges consider the project.
Cowboys draft rumor shot down by star defender’s 30 visit
How would you feel about Jermod McCoy?
Steelers trade proposal sends Nick Herbig to NFC powerhouse
Could the Steelers send Herbig out of Pittsburgh?
Are the Bills better after offseason additions and departures?
The Bills made some big moves, including trading for DJ Moore and signing Bradley Chubb. Is Buffalo’s roster improved?
Chelsea Star Speaks On Exit From Manchester United
Garnacho, Chelsea Move Signals Reflection After Man United ExitThere is often a moment, quiet and uncomfortable, when a young footballer begins to understand that talent alone does not carry a career....
Detroit Lions 2026 NFL Draft Need Analysis: Quarterback
The Lions seem solid at the QB position for 2026, but could they add a developmental QB?
Ravens add Dr. Nic Gill for outside perspective on sports performance
The Baltimore Ravens hired Dr. Nic Gill as VP of Health & Performance, bringing an 'outside perspective' to the team.
“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.
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.
2026 NFL Draft Profile: Texas tight end Jack Endries
Texas tight end Jack Endries is a Day 3 prospect the Denver Broncos should consider in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Atlético Madrid ‘astounded’ by Barcelona’s refereeing complaints
The fallout from Barcelona’s defeat to Atletico Madrid continues to intensify, with the Madrid-based club now responding to the actions taken by Barcelona following the controversial encounter.After...
Three-star recruit Trenton Blaylock narrows list to final eight
Trenton Blaylock is the brother of Oklahoma running back Tory Blaylock.
A mom and tech entrepreneur building AI advocate for rare-disease families like hers
AI-powered healthcare startup Citizen Health is using the technology to focus on rare disease, helping manage patient lives as well as advance treatments.
Masters 2026 3rd round leaderboard, live updates: Rory McIlroy carries historic lead into the weekend at Augusta National
How AI used Adobe Lightroom like a human, only faster
OpenAI's Codex AI coding service worked out how to use Adobe Lightroom like a human, denoising 50 photos without an API or plugin.