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Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for April 16, 2026, puzzle No. 570
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Sneaker Company Allbirds Plans to Pivot to A.I. Yes, A.I.
After selling its business for $39 million last month, the company said it planned to buy powerful computer chips and rebrand itself NewBird AI.
Analysis of Alzheimer’s Drugs Stirs Debate About Their Effectiveness
The review said a certain class of drugs had little clinical benefit, but many Alzheimer’s experts criticized the analysis, saying it unfairly lumped failed drugs with two recently approved treatments.
Trump’s Portrayal of the War in Iran Collides With Reality
President Trump is confronting a crisis that is not bending to his narrative of a “pretty reasonable” new regime in Iran and all-but-assured victory for the United States.
Can Trump and Republicans Get Back on Message on the Economy?
It’s Tax Day, but much of the country’s focus has been on an unpopular war.
In the House, Republican Plans Go Awry Amid Party Divides
Fresh off a two-week break, lawmakers returned to turmoil in the House, where legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security is stalled and the G.O.P. is struggling to keep its agenda on track.
Arsenal 0 Sporting 0: Arteta’s men do enough to set up Atletico Madrid semi-final
After a recent run of poor results, Arsenal hold firm to progress to the Champions League semi-finals
Sports Betting Industry Spends $41 Million to Influence Elections
With a well-funded super PAC, the betting platforms DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics are aiming to shape future regulation of their rapidly growing industry.
With Iran War on Pause, Political Battle Resumes Over Israeli Democracy
A court fight over Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist who oversees the police, pits the attorney general against Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government.
Google rolls out a native Gemini app for Mac
You can share anything on their screen with Gemini to get help with what they're looking at in the moment, including local files
The economic outlook of women’s sports reached a tipping point this week
This week's free sports business newsletter from The Athletic, featuring Amazon's NBA snafu, Tax Day and some outstanding story recs.
Blue Prince Devs Want You To Go Into These Indie Games Blind
Pick up Animal Well, Blue Prince, Outer Wilds and more, but don't find out anything else about them first
Opinion | Vance, the Pope and ‘Matters of Morality’
Readers respond to Vice President JD Vance’s remarks critical of Pope Leo XIV. Also: Mr. Trump, try kindness; a tax solution that wasn’t.
Debt Alarms Ring as Countries Rack Up More Emergency Spending
Amid signs of a prolonged period of high energy costs, policymakers are urging restraint as governments open up the public till to protect households and businesses.
Nature Is Still Molding Human Genes, Study Finds
Some researchers hold that evolution hasn’t much altered humans in the past 10,000 years. A new analysis of ancient DNA indicates that natural selection continued to shape hundreds of genes.
Why 2025 Topps Chrome Football is the most anticipated sports card release of 2026
With buybacks, bounties and even FaceTime chats with Tom Brady, the hype surrounding Topps' return to licensed NFL cards has been massive.
Trump Increased Tax Refunds, but a Political Challenge Still Looms
While last year’s tax law has raised the average I.R.S. refund, the boost is less than the White House expected — and may not have much impact on voters.
Japan Pledges $10 Billion to Help Countries Cope With Oil Prices
With supply chains at risk, the aid to Southeast Asian nations is aimed at securing the availability of oil-based products, including medical equipment.
Catching up with Stars GM Jim Nill: Unfinished business, injury updates, playoff format and more
Nill, whose team has gone to three straight conference finals, signed a two-year extension recently: "We haven’t finished what we’re doing."
Matt Crocker’s abrupt U.S. Soccer departure brings many questions. Here are the answers.
U.S. Soccer's sporting director is headed for Saudi Arabia. This is what it means for the federation – and what comes next at a pivotal time
Sabres’ playoff return has business of hockey booming in Buffalo again
The Sabres' attendance, TV ratings and merchandise sales have surged with Buffalo's first playoff team since 2011.
U.S. senator introducing bill intended to make sports TV more accessible to fans
The "For The Fans" Act hopes to expand free TV access to games for local fans facing subscription paywalls.
Opinion | GLP-1 Experimentation Is Everywhere, and Science Can’t Keep Up
Millions of Americans are experimenting with the drugs. Science can’t keep up.
Opinion | GLP-1 Experimentation Is Everywhere, and Science Can’t Keep Up
Millions of Americans are experimenting with the drugs. Science can’t keep up.
The Pickleball Slam, Anna Leigh Waters and a sport trying to escape the gravity of tennis stars
Waters, 19, is pickleball's dominant force. But can more of its best players join her at its most visible showcase in the U.S.?
He Has a War Chest and an ‘R’ by His Name. Will Enough Voters Like Him?
Vivek Ramaswamy has all but cleared the field ahead of the May primary for Ohio governor, but whether a finance and pharma billionaire is the man for the moment is another question.
The World Cup isn’t where Matt Crocker’s sudden exit will impact U.S. Soccer most
The federation sporting director's sudden defection to Saudi Arabia comes with bad optics on the cusp of a home World Cup
A new approach to brain health, one neuron at a time
Neuroscientist Paul Nuyujukian likens the brain to a stadium full of people. To eavesdrop on the crowd you could put a microphone in the middle of the stadium. But to understand the conversations you need to record individual people. He thinks about the brain the same way. To understand brain disease, he studies neurons—one at a time. And his insights are shedding light on a big global issue—stroke. The World Health Organization predicts one in four adults will have a stroke in their lifetime. Strokes can cause death, or lead to paralysis or speech problems. But there’s still a lot researchers don’t know about how the brain recovers from an event like a stroke. Nuyujukian directs a lab at Stanford University that studies how the brain controls movement, including after neurological events like stroke. We get into how he does this, and why he hopes his research could eventually help people who’ve been paralyzed. Email us your questions about the brain – or anything else to do with science at shortwave@npr.org. We may turn it into an episode in the future!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Home advantage? Our Arsenal writers discuss the Emirates atmosphere before Sporting CP’s visit
As Arsenal host Sporting in the Champions League quarter-final second leg, we discuss the tension within the Emirates crowd
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for April 15, 2026, puzzle No. 569
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
War Exposes Gaps in India’s Clean Energy Push
The country’s creaking electricity grid is lagging behind its push for renewable sources — just as its growing economy hungers for oil stranded by war.
JD Vance Heckled In Antiwar Protest at Turning Point USA Event
Vice President JD Vance appeared to express sympathy with critics of the war with Iran: “I recognize that young voters do not love the policy we have in the Middle East, OK. I understand.”
Women's health strategy: 'I still don't feel listened to'
New plans to improve healthcare for women and girls have been set out, but will they change anything?
Scientists just solved a 160-million-year fossil mystery “I’ve never seen anything like it”
A rare fossil discovery is shedding light on the “missing years” of early sponge evolution. Scientists found a 550-million-year-old sponge that likely lacked hard skeletal parts, explaining why earlier fossils are so scarce. This supports the idea that the earliest sponges were soft-bodied and rarely preserved. The finding changes how researchers hunt for the origins of animal life.
Justice Dept. Moves to Vacate Jan. 6 Convictions for Far-Right Extremists
Defending the convictions would likely have required administration officials to assert that far-right groups were acting on behalf of President Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
Hungary’s Populist Paradox
We look at what Viktor Orban’s defeat tells us about a model of government in which politics are more important than the economy.
The Treasury Secretary vs. Climate Science
In comments on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change.
Trump Administration Accuses Biden DOJ of Unfairly Prosecuting Anti-Abortion Activists
The report is part of the president’s effort to claim anti-conservative and anti-Christian biases in federal law enforcement, even as he pushes to wield the legal system against his political enemies.
House Republicans Step Up Scrutiny of ActBlue Over Foreign Donations
Three Republican-led committees, responding to a New York Times report this month, accused the Democratic fund-raising organization of withholding documents from a subpoena request.
The RAM Crisis Just Royally Screwed Microsoft Surface PCs
We likely won't see a new Surface PC as cheap as the MacBook Neo anytime soon.
Ricky Cobb Has Built a Mini-Empire Through ’70s Nostalgia
Ricky Cobb has built a big online following with his irreverent postings about the absurdities of the 1970s.
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.
Mikel Arteta wants to see ‘no fear’ and ‘pure fire’ from Arsenal’s players and fans
Arsenal could be without several key players for their Champions League second-leg tie against Sporting on Wednesday.
J.P. Morgan Sees Resiliency in U.S. Economy Despite Iran War
The nation’s largest bank said it earned record trading profits in the first quarter but tempered expectations overall for its business.
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker to leave role, set to join Saudi Arabian Football Federation
The 51-year-old is set to take a up a new role with the Saudi Arabian Football Federation.
Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out, According to an Independent Audit
“This is the Strait of Hormuz in the data economy. If you want to make a change, this is where you cut it off. Anything short of that is theatrical political posture.”
Ally reaches ’50/50 pledge’ on women’s sports spending ahead of schedule
The pledge, which aimed for gender parity in sports media investment within five years, has been realized in just four.
Olivia Troye, Ex-Pence Aide, Runs for the House as a Democrat
After spending most of her Washington career as a Republican, she joins a crowded field of Democrats running in a Virginia district that doesn’t exist yet.
A sports blitz starts tonight, plus a WNBA Draft surprise
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! I hope your TV is in working order. Coming up: 📆 A busy stretch begins 1️⃣ Dallas’ surprise at No. 1 🏆 Rory’s family win One of the busiest stretches of important pro sporting events begins tonight, and I mean that in quite a positive way. The NBA playoffs tip off in a few hours, with two Play-In games. This weekend, the NHL playoffs will join. Both sports will crown winners by the third week of June … which is when the...
Opinion | A Road Map for Defeating Trumpism
The free world should take an honest look at how Hungary’s opposition party defeated a far-right giant.
In Leo, Trump Faces a Different Kind of Papal Opponent
Unlike his predecessor, Pope Leo XIV enjoys growing support from a broad swath of conservative Catholics.
Detroit Aims to Become Center of U.S. Drone Manufacturing
The state, known for making cars, is spending millions to entice drone manufacturers that can bring new business to auto suppliers.
I Feel So Sorry for My A.I. Sunglasses
Plenty of people hate Mark Zuckerberg’s superintelligent, supercharged spectacles. I was ready to hate them, too.
Big Money Is Betting on Bagels
High-quality bagels were once the sole domain of a few major cities. Investors believe they can take the breakfast staple nationwide.
Trump and New York Are in a Tug of War Over Medicaid Coverage
With tough new regulations looming in the president’s domestic policy bill, officials are coming up with plans to keep New Yorkers insured.
New Rules Hinder Foreign Firms From Moving Supply Chains From China
Multinationals in China are concerned that the regulations could allow authorities to penalize companies and executives for shifting supply chains away from the country.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for April 14, 2026, puzzle No. 568
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Trump and MAGA Embraced Orban. Now, They’re Worried by His Loss in Hungary’s Election.
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, and his right-wing playbook were embraced by parts of the American right. Now some are worried by his defeat.
Vance Says Pope Leo Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
The vice president, a Catholic, defended President Trump, who had accused the pope of being too liberal and “weak on crime.”The pontiff responded that he had “no fear of the Trump administration.”
What Happens in California Governor’s Race After Eric Swalwell Stepped Down?
For Democrats, the drama is reverberating well beyond the state.
Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate
As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as “lunatic” and “clearly insane.”
Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate
As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as “lunatic” and “clearly insane.”
Swalwell’s Fall Punctuates Woes of Democrats in California, of All Places
Democrats have struggled to find a candidate for governor who can capture the imagination of voters in one of their most important strongholds.
Many Popes Before Leo Have Been Entangled in Politics. Here Are 5 of Them.
Leo XIV, under fire from President Trump, has joined predecessors including Francis and John Paul II in confronting political issues.
How Orban Lost His Touch, and Hungary’s Election
The election defeat for Prime Minister Viktor Orban is less the result of an ideological shift in Hungary, and more the playing out of a fundamental rule of politics.
The Next Test in the Iran War: Which Side Can Endure More Economic Pain?
President Trump is trying to choke off the country’s lifeline with a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But the Iranians are betting that his tolerance for political pain is limited.
After Criticizing Pope, Trump Posts Image of Himself as a Jesus-Like Figure
The image, posted on Truth Social, appeared to be A.I.-generated and depicts the president as a divine leader healing the sick.
First-Class Seats Drive Airline Profits. It Wasn’t Always This Way.
Airlines have become adept at selling increasingly nice seats to travelers, and customers have grown much more willing to pay for them.
After Charlie Kirk’s Death, a Fight for the Youth Vote
A fledgling Democratic group and the far-right white nationalist Nick Fuentes seek to make gains on college campuses that have recently been dominated by Turning Point USA.
‘We Are Growing’: Fresh Designs Lift Raymond Weil
Elie Bernheim, the chief executive of Raymond Weil, has confidence in his “accessible luxury” business model.
In the Desert, a ‘Cleaning Station’ for Ants
A unique “choreography” between two ant species suggests a distinctive partnership in which one provides a carwash service to the other.
Liverpool, the Grand National and the rumbling discord around Merseyside’s biggest sporting day
Those in control of the most powerful sporting institutions stand accused of understanding the cost of everything but the value of nothing
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for April 13, 2026, puzzle No. 567
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Trump Attacks Pope Leo as Too Liberal and ‘Weak on Crime’
President Trump’s lengthy post on social media showed there were really no boundaries when it comes to people he might target, including the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for April 13 #567
Here's today's Connections: Sports Edition answer and hints for groups. These clues will help you solve The New York Times' popular puzzle game, Connections: Sports Edition, every day.
Trump Says Gas Prices Might Not Drop By Midterms, Highlighting G.O.P. Peril
The president has sent mixed messages on how long he expects costs to be high. Some in his party voiced fresh concern after his comments on Sunday.
California Democrats Rushed to Back Eric Swalwell — and Quickly Abandoned Him
Representative Eric Swalwell, a Washington figure, was largely unknown in the California State Capitol. But influential groups began backing him for governor in the weeks before he was publicly accused of sexual assault.
Illinois Court Hears Final Lawsuit Challenging Marijuana Social Equity Business Licensing Lottery
“We just want a fair shot. We’re not asking for anything special, no special privileges, but what they promised from the very beginning.” By Hannah Meisel, Capitol News Illinois Nearly seven years after Illinois lawmakers approved recreational cannabis legalization, applicants who lost out on coveted business licenses are still battling the state in court, alleging […]
Anker's EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages
This ultraviolet printer prints on literally anything—canvas, wood, metal, plastic, you name it. Like all things that are the first of their kind, it also costs a heavy premium.
The ‘Annoyance Economy’ Is More Than Just Annoying
A new estimate puts the cost of dealing with robocalls, hidden fees and customer service chatbots that can’t solve most problems at $165 billion.
Peloton’s Latest Leader Thinks He Can Coach It Back to Health
The fitness company has fallen to a small fraction of its value at its pandemic peak, but Peter Stern says Peloton is headed in the right direction.
Peloton’s Latest Leader Thinks He Can Coach It Back to Health
The fitness company has fallen to a small fraction of its value at its pandemic peak, but Peter Stern says Peloton is headed in the right direction.
What Now? Vance Leaves Iran Talks Without a Deal.
The lack of a breakthrough after 21 hours of negotiations leaves the Trump administration facing several unpalatable options.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for April 12, 2026, puzzle No. 566
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Trump Was Watching a U.F.C. Fight in Miami While Iran Talks Collapsed
On his way to Florida, President Trump said it did not matter to him if a deal with Iran was reached or not: “We win, regardless,” he said.
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for April 12 #566
Here's today's Connections: Sports Edition answer and hints for groups. These clues will help you solve The New York Times' popular puzzle game, Connections: Sports Edition, every day.
Seniors: Dennis Ouellette, 80
Ontario Orchards owner not slowing down as he grows his farm market By Stefan Yablonski The seeds for Dennis Ouellette’s career path were sown when he was 6 years old — and he isn’t slowing down. “Since age 6, I grew up an agriculturalist. That is 72 years. Started out with a 37-acre farm when I bought it from my parents and built it up to almost 300 acres. Brought it back down to around 200 acres now,” he said. The location of his business was just a barn, a horse barn, he said. “In 1967, it officially became Ontario Orchards Farm Market. My wife [June] and I graduated [high school] in 1964 and three years later we became Ontario Orchards. We have been here more than 60 years,” he explained. “It is the same location. We have expanded over the years as the customers mentioned different things; we have expanded to bring in different products. “What keeps me going is I totally enjoy what I am doing. I enjoy the people that I work with. The customers are wonderful. Mostly, more important than anything, is my family — my wife, my daughters, grandchildren, son-in-law — we are still very much a family business I’m not going to retire just yet.” He also enjoys the changing seasons. “Ontario Orchards is a four-season business. There is always something new; more energy, more interest. Not only for the business but for my staff, the people that work here. Things keep changing, changing. We are always looking forward to something new and exciting,” he said. They work with quite a number of local farmers within the area and throughout the state, throughout the country and from around the world.” “We do have things from different countries around the world. But specifically, we are very excited about the local. We have an over 200-acre farm. We sell just about everything we raise on that farm right here at the farm market. For example, we press cider year-round. We make baked goods every day, year-round. We sell our apples 12 months a year.” “Today, there are so many products in Ontario Orchards that we never would have thought of in 1967,” he continued. “I attribute a lot of that to my daughters. I like the young blood and new energy. That is very crucial to a business, it keeps it vibrant.” What’s his favorite part of the job? “I don’t have a favorite part. I enjoy it all. I have a lot of intertest in other things,” he said. “I have staff that knows so much. I can go to the staff and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, you tell me what this is.’ They are so knowledgeable. It is impossible for one person to know everything in this place. In the summer, staff is about 60; in the winter about 20, 25.” He added that he plans on being around for several more years.
Takeaways From the First Big Gathering of Potential 2028 Democratic Candidates
The National Action Network convention showcased similarities and some differences in a wide open field of possible contenders.
Postal Service, Under Pressure, Now Faces Trump’s Mail Ballot Order
President Trump’s executive order, which has been challenged as unconstitutional, would limit the Postal Service to sending only the ballots of voters deemed eligible.
U.S. Moves to Deport Son of Prominent Figure in Iranian Revolution
Federal agents arrested a man whose mother served as a spokeswoman for the Islamist embassy captors during the hostage crisis that began in 1979.
Dianna Russini sidelined by New York Times during investigation into Mike Vrabel photos
Dianna Russini has been sidelined during an NYT investigation after photos surfaced of the NFL reporter with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, per reports.
I changed my embarrassing Gmail username without losing anything, and you can too
Google now lets Gmail users switch to a new address while keeping the old one as an alias — here's how!
“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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