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Valve adds Steam Controller unboxing video to SteamDB as launch signs grow
Valve's new Steam Controller launch is imminent Valve may be getting closer to a Steam Controller update. A new SteamDB entry called
$166 billion in tariff refunds just became available, but small businesses may already be at a disadvantage
U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched an electronic tariff refund portal on Monday, the first step in U.S. importers getting their refunds.
All Samsung smartphones that are getting Galaxy S26 AI features with One UI 8.5
Samsung introduced several new Galaxy AI features with the Galaxy S26 series and is bringing them to older devices with One UI 8.5.
Christina Applegate addresses health concerns after reported hospitalization
Christina Applegate returns to social media with gratitude and admits she's getting stronger every day while focusing on her MS-related health issues.
$50M entertainment destination planned for Downtown Clearwater
Downtown Clearwater is getting a major shakeup with the announcement of a new $50 million family entertainment hub. The company EVO Entertainment is building an 83,000 square-foot entertainment cente...
Motorola Razr (2026) prices leak from $799 with big price hikes, Fold at $1,899
Motorola’s new Razr lineup is likely debuting very soon and, in a new report, we’re getting US prices on the...
DeSantis administration gets pushback for its child health policies
The DeSantis administration is getting pushback for its children’s health care policies and its decision to remove tens of thousands of children from a subsidized health insurance program.
Exclusive | Adobe Unveils Agents for Businesses Amid Threat of AI Disruption
The software maker’s new AI agents are aimed at getting ahead of the risk of artificial intelligence to its business.
Exclusive | Adobe Unveils Agents for Businesses Amid Threat of AI Disruption
The software maker’s new AI agents are aimed at getting ahead of the risk of artificial intelligence to its business.
Why Democrats with 2028 hopes are calling Lina Khan – and what she’s telling them about remaking the economy
Lina Khan is getting constant calls from Democrats, many of them thinking about presidential runs, to sound out problems and workshop potential solutions. That’s a shift from when she was Federal Trade Commission chair and some party leaders avoided meetings or events with her. Khan hasn’t changed so much as the world around her has. Many Americans are furious about rising costs, affordability, technological changes, and soaring profits for the rich. And President Donald Trump has maximized the levers of federal power in ways that were once considered off-limits in both parties. What Khan has in mind for the next Democrat in the White House isn’t a 1,000-page blueprint like the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It’s more of an overall strategy rooted in her specialty: excavating long-forgotten laws already on the books, then finding ways to apply them to 21st century companies.
Column | Just 2 minutes a day of this type of exercise may help you live longer
Getting older doesn’t have to mean slowing down. In fact, turning up the intensity, even very briefly, can transform long-term health and improve longevity.
Helping young adults stay active
1 in 3 parents say their adult child is minimally active or inactive. 2 in 5 parents say lack of time gets in the way of their adult child getting enough physical activity. 3 in 4 parents have tried to encourage their adult child to be more physically active with verbal encouragement.
Bob on Business: Haltom City, soon home to H Mart, is getting a new Costco brand
Also, Watergate impact in Cleburne? TechFW’s lab and a helicopter sequel.
Windows 11 to get a major reliability update in May with faster clipboard, stable taskbar, storage and more
Microsoft is preparing a major Windows 11 reliability update for May 2026 with improvements across File Explorer, explorer.exe, taskbar, Settings, clipboard history, input systems, and Windows Hello. Early Insider builds show faster performance, fewer crashes, and a more stable experience.
Athan Kaliakmanis Visits Several NFL Teams Before Upcoming Draft
Kaliakmanis visits several NFL teams with the hopes of getting drafted
Are you a woman who makes life easier for everyone else? Beware – you could endanger your health
A new claim is doing the rounds online: that women who are too nice risk getting an autoimmune disease. And while aspects of this message are clearly dubious, there’s a reason it is resonating, writes Emma Beddington
FanDuel wants to carve a sports niche in the controversial prediction market business
FanDuel has built a large and growing business with its sports betting app, becoming the largest online sportsbook in the United States. But online sports gambling remains illegal in many states, which is why it’s getting into the booming — and controversial — prediction market business.
FanDuel wants to carve a sports niche in the controversial prediction market business
FanDuel has built a large and growing business with its sports betting app, becoming the largest online sportsbook in the United States. But online sports gambling remains illegal in many states, which is why it’s getting into the booming — and controversial — prediction market business.
This week in politics: How Schuylkill County’s legislators voted
Between ongoing budget stalemates and severe partisan divides, it can be easy to feel like nothing is getting done in government. But every week is a busy week in politics, and important developments are happening at both the state and…
Downtown Redding draws floral, stained-glass shop. Popular pub closes
This week in the Buzz, downtown Redding is getting another new business, this sports pub plans to close, and a sign is up for a new burger joint.
“Yeah… it’s not so good,” as Microsoft confirms major Rewards changes in May and what it means for anyone who relies on daily point earning
Microsoft Rewards is getting an update with new tiers, monthly bonuses, and expanded rollout, but early feedback suggests not everyone is convinced by the changes.
Are some Arsenal fans acting lacking perspective?
When some supporters of other clubs call ours entitled, I kind of see it.When things are going well, a section of our fanbase has a habit of getting carried away and making some arrogant statements.Eq...
Jade Market launches incubator for Asian retailers amid vision to build cultural, business hub in KC
A small group of Asian entrepreneurs leading product-based businesses are getting an opportunity to brush up on their retail readiness in Hella Good Deeds’ inaugural Jade Market Cohort.
Science news this week: Physicists witness faster-than-light darkness pinpricks, humans are still evolving, and some polar bears are getting fatter than ever
April 18, 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
Science news this week: Physicists witness faster-than-light darkness pinpricks, humans are still evolving, and some polar bears are getting fatter than ever
April 18, 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
Strait of Hormuz reopens & getting money out of politics
The Strait of Hormuz reopens as President Trump teases another round of talks. Retired Naval Intelligence Commander Dr. Paul Chabot weighs in on what could come next. Plus, Ken Whittaker with Michigan United discusses why he feels money should be taken out of politics.
Rumor: New Resident Evil Requiem music found in datamine, Mercenaries could be on the way
Fans have apparently found new music in Resident Evil Requiem's files via a datamine and the game could be getting a Mercenaries mode.
A low-cost with a cult following is getting its first business class
Launched in 2003 out of the Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) in northern England, the British low-cost airline Jet2 went unexpectedly viral in the summer of 2025 over an earlier commercial for its package holidays. The cheerful tune alongside the tagline "Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday" became a meme and ...
Welch Suggs co-edits ‘Teaching Sports Media’
Welch Suggs, associate director of the Carmical Sports Media Institute at Grady College, has just published a new book, “Teaching Sports Media: Classroom Strategies for Getting Your Students in the […]
American Politics Is Already Inundated With AI Deepfakes. It’s Only Getting Worse.
These aren’t your 2024 deepfakes. Bad actors will go for broke using state-of-the-art AI tools to blunt voters’ confidence in elections.
Ohio governor race between Ramaswamy, Acton turns ugly
The fight over who'll be the next Ohio governor is getting ugly. And the election is still more than six months away.
Ex-Goldman Analyst Jeff Currie Is Getting Into the Oil Business
Jeff Currie, the one-time Goldman Sachs Group Inc. commodities strategist known for shaping investor views on energy markets, has co-founded an oil and gas company.
iPhone 17 Pro Max Units With Dents And Scuffs Are Being Restored To Near-Pristine Levels, Similar To Cars Getting Repaired
Some owners cannot stand the sight of their shiny new iPhone 17 Pro Max getting bumps or scratches, causing them to seek those who can restore them
Google AI Mode getting deep Chrome integration on desktop, mobile
Like the Gemini app before, Google is now deeply integrating AI Mode with desktop and mobile Chrome. On the New Tab Page...
Gatorade, inventor of the sports drink, is getting a rebrand targeting non-athletes
Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It's no longer focusing primarily on athletes.
Battlefield 6 Getting 7 New Maps This Year, Plus A Server Browser And More
Classics Battlefield map Wake Island and Grand Bazaar will arrive later this year alongside a server browser, prox chat, and more
Gatorade, inventor of the sports drink, is getting a rebrand targeting non-athletes
Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes.
Rumour: Red Dead Redemption May Be Getting A Rubbish 'Code-In-A-Box' Release
Out to pasture
Gatorade, inventor of the sports drink, is getting a rebrand targeting non-athletes
Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes.
Political violence trending: Congress faces rising threats
We hear and read the increasingly graphic and profane abuse that elected officials and staffers are getting daily.
Netflix Q1 earnings preview: Analysts bullish on price hikes, ads
Netflix is getting back to basics after bowing out of the bidding war for Warner Bros. and is looking to expand its ad tier.
Darius Garland to focus on getting healthy
Darius Garland to focus on getting healthy
How Dangerous Is Anthropic’s New AI Model? Its Chief Science Officer Explains.
Just how fast is the future coming at us, and how worried should we be? Last week, Anthropic announced Claude Mythos, the latest in what has become the leading family of AI models. In a very short time, AI models from Anthropic and other companies have become shockingly powerful at coding. But Mythos stands out because it is not just able to write code that can hack into critical systems, like those that run financial companies, but also to analyze systems and find and string together vulnerabilities in them, allowing Mythos to evade even sophisticated defenses. Anthropic chose to release Mythos to only about 40 leading corporations, so they could analyze the model’s capabilities and prepare countermeasures, in an effort it calls Project Glasswing. The release of Mythos—and the prospect of similarly powerful AIs to follow—has caused tremors at the top levels of Washington and corporate America. Jared Kaplan, co-founder and chief science officer at Anthropic, is at the center of this breakthrough. We sat down with Kaplan so he could walk us through just how powerful Mythos is, what the implications are for issues like our personal privacy, and what comes next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Sean Fischer: For the layman, how is Claude Mythos different—more powerful, more dangerous—from previous models released by Anthropic? Jared Kaplan: I think most people have experienced the fact that our computers get faster and faster over time and over many decades. There’s this very smooth trend where every 18 months, maybe, computer processing power doubles. I think AI is on a trend in which it’s improving maybe 10 times faster than that. A lot of the earliest work that I did in AI was around identifying this scaling trend in AI. Claude Mythos is the latest model from Anthropic, but it’s not different because it’s qualitatively different. It’s really just kind of the culmination of the trend of AI models getting smarter and smarter at all kinds of general capabilities, from reasoning to software engineering to scientific research to knowledge work. For us, it was the first model to demonstrate very elite-level cybersecurity capabilities. It wasn’t because we trained Claude Mythos to focus on cybersecurity, but it was because, as a byproduct of its general intelligence and its general ability with software, it’s particularly good at identifying vulnerabilities in software and how to exploit them.
BBC News NI's Sunday Politics is getting a new look as it's available for the first time across the BBC
Mark Carruthers will present the multi-platform programme from a new studio home in Broadcasting House
How much severance Disney's laid-off employees are getting
Disney laid off employees for the first time under CEO Josh D'Amaro. Here's what departing staffers are getting paid in severance.
Crew Begins New Space Research and Installs New Science Gear
New science experiments are getting underway and new research hardware is being activated aboard the International Space Station after being delivered aboard the Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft on Monday. The Expedition 74 crew spent Wednesday unpacking Cygnus XL and stowing the new gear and supplies throughout the orbital outpost.
5 takeaways from recent Iran polls that look increasingly grim for Trump
The US war with Iran is getting more unpopular over time. And as we’ve gotten more extensive polling, we learning more about why that is.
New Willmar entertainment venue teaming up with Rendezvous Axe Throwing
(Willmar MN-) Shining Light Entertainment at The Uptown Willmar Mall is getting closer to opening. Co-Owner Jason Miller says in addition to laser tag and mini-golf, they will be teaming up with Rendezvous Axe Throwing......Victoria Hibma of Rendezvous Axe Throwing says their location on West Litchfield Avenue is now closed and the building, which also houses an operating laundry mat, is for sale. They are in the process of moving their throwing lanes and kitchen equipment to the Shining Light location, across from Golden Ticket Cinema, in the former Chen Garden Restaurant space. Shining Light had hoped to open this past winter, but Miller now hopes to be in operation in less than 2 months......
ETSU renaming sports complex after major partnership
East Tennessee State University’s Campus Recreation Field Complex is getting a new name and a significant investment in student recreation facilities.
This simple change stops robot swarms from getting stuck
In crowded environments, more robots don’t always mean faster results—in fact, too many can bring everything to a standstill. Harvard researchers discovered a surprising fix: adding a bit of randomness to how robots move can actually prevent gridlock and boost efficiency. By allowing robots to “wiggle” slightly instead of marching in straight lines, they can slip past each other and keep tasks flowing smoothly.
Orioles manager Craig Albernaz has broken jaw, 7 facial fractures after getting hit by Jeremiah Jackson line drive
How vibe coding app Anything is rebuilding after getting booted from the App Store twice
Anything is planning to launch a desktop companion app to aid mobile app development after its App Store removal.
Ecuador and Saudi Arabia Will Face Off at Sports Illustrated Stadium in May During Final Preparations for the World Cup
MIAMI, FL (April 10, 2026) - Utilizing the last FIFA match window prior to the World Cup, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia will face off at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, NJ on May 30th at 7:30 pm (ET). Both teams are laser focused on getting out of the Group Stage
Bengals free-agency reunion candidate gets visit with another team
This Bengals reunion in free agency is getting less likely to happen.
The Pixel 10 is getting a major security boost you'll never actually see
Google is bringing memory-safe Rust code to the Pixel 10 modem to protect users from remote hacking and memory-safety vulnerabilities.
Laughlin entertainment scene draws tourists
Laughlin’s tourism growth is getting a boost from an entertainment lineup that’s drawing visitors from across the region, with big-name concerts, revived specia
'Oslo patient' likely cured of HIV after getting stem cell transplant from his brother, who is genetically resistant to the virus
A man known as the "Oslo patient" joins a short list of people in long-term remission from HIV following bone marrow transplants.
Gemini for Google Home Keeps Getting Huge Upgrades
We can't seem to go a week at this point without Google pushing out several upgrades and changes to its Google Home products. From Gemini for Home to bug and reliability fixes, we're really...
ShinyHunters breached Rockstar Games in ransomware attack, sets April 14 deadline
Rockstar can't stop getting hacked.
BYU professor seeks to improve local political outreach
Looking to reform local political efforts in Utah County, Darin Self has a community-based approach to getting people involved in politics.
Intel May Have an Answer to AMD's Most Powerful Gaming CPUs
The Intel and AMD CPU rivalry is getting exciting again.
4A Games announces Metro 2039, and we're getting an Xbox-themed reveal stream later this week
Developer 4A Games and publisher Deep Silver have announced Metro 2039, the fourth entry in the post-apocalyptic FPS series. A full reveal is coming this week.
Google’s Latest Pixel Update Is Bad News For Android
Android has a serious problem — and it's now getting worse.
The most important Democratic health care debate is raging again
Single payer is getting a second wind.
Colorado House finishes work on 2026-27 state budget, finally
The House on Saturday, after four days of work – it usually takes two – finished up their work and voted on the $46.8 billion 2026-27 state budget, as contained in House Bill 1410 and 64 accompanying measures designed to help balance the budget. The delay in getting to the finish line was caused by […]
If You Visit JoJo’s Diner, Bring Your Appetite
By Stefan Yablonski Q: When did you open? A: We opened Oct. 1. Q: Did you have a previous business? A: This is my first business ever. Q: So why did you start this? A: I was cooking for people my entire life and I decided I’m just going to try it on my own. And here we are! Q: How’s business been? A: It’s been good. Kind of slow over the winter, but starting to pick up now that the weather is getting better. We have high hopes for spring. We were really hopping over the weekend when it was much nicer out. Q: What’s your best dish? A: Our junkyard plates are our huge specialty. It’s a huge messy plate of goodness. We also have breakfast sandwiches, waffles, smashburgers and more. Q: Do you own this building? A: We lease from Chuck Burger. He’s our landlord. He has been super helpful. He provided all the equipment. I didn’t have to. Q: You’re a breakfast spot? A: We do breakfast and lunch all day. It’s kind of our thing. We are open 7-3 every day except Tuesdays. Q: How big is your staff? A: Currently it’s one other person. It’s just been me on the front end and someone in the kitchen or vice versa. Q: It’s all to go? A: Everything comes out ‘to go’ — served in to-go containers. You can eat inside or you can take it with you. We don’t have to provide extra staff for waitresses and dishwashers and all that. Q: Do you have any business background? A: I did the small business program at the college. But that’s about it. We’re new, but we’re still building. We hope to grow and stay here for a long time.
Youth wheelchair racing clinic helps athletes prepare for Boston Marathon
“It’s so good to see them at such a young age getting involved in sports."
Entertainment venues keep packing Fresno-area calendar. 10 (more) shows to watch
Among a slew of announcements, Broadway in Fresno put out its next lineup: We’re getting the Neil Diamond musical and a return of “Jersey Boys.”
Entertainment venues keep packing Fresno-area calendar. 10 (more) shows to watch
Among a slew of announcements, Broadway in Fresno put out its next lineup: We’re getting the Neil Diamond musical and a return of “Jersey Boys.”
“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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