Jeri Dansky

Another incredibly bad use of AI: fake polling. See an interesting poll? Be sure to check the methodology!

NYT gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/opinion/ai-polling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Y1A.npWr.AjQbQQEbSFQS&smid=url-share

A recent Axios story on maternal health policy referenced “findings” that a majority of people trusted their doctors and nurses. On the surface, there’s nothing unusual about that. What wasn’t originally mentioned, however, was that these findings were made up.

Clicking through the links revealed (as did a subsequent editor’s note and clarification by Axios) that the public opinion poll was a computer simulation run by the artificial intelligence start-up Aaru. No people were involved in the creation of these opinions.

The practice Aaru used is called silicon sampling, and it’s suddenly everywhere.

#AI #poll

Opinion | It’s Called Silicon Sampling, and It’s Going to Ruin Public Opinion Polling

Instead of navigating the obstacles to conduct polls with human respondents, pollsters are running A.I. simulations instead. Why?

The New York Times
Apr 6 at 8:14pmWeb
Show threadPlay Ball and Fight Fascists2d ago

@jeridansky

I had not even heard of that before now.

And I instantly hate it.

Show threadJeri Dansky2d ago
@cafechatnoir I hadn't heard of it until today, either. Hate seems well deserved.
Show threadBruce Mirken2d ago
@jeridansky Yikes. If Axios called that a poll or survey and not a SIMULATED poll, that's journalistic malpractice.
Show threadAliide2d ago
@BruceMirken @jeridansky yeah, it's called making shit up, and we're generally not supposed to do that.
Show threadBruce Mirken2d ago
@aliide @jeridansky In my earlier life as a journalist, I was always under the impression that was the standard.
Show threadKanaMauna2d ago
@jeridansky Rebranded lying
Show threadGreg Bell2d ago
@jeridansky @andrewabernathy I love how everything fake now somehow becomes reputable if you make an LLM say it