Will AI lead to more accurate opinion polls?
It's cheaper and faster to collect people's opinions using AI, but will it make polls more accurate?
Coverage by Political Leaning
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Notable Quotes
"To my knowledge we're the first to do this for political opinion polling as well."
— Pierre Fontaine , Executive
"We don't ask people to tick boxes - they have a conversation with an AI."
— Pierre Fontaine , Executive
"Response rates to surveys have fallen sharply, from over 30% in the 1990s to below 5% today."
— Stéphane Le Brun , Academic
"To my knowledge we're the first to do this for political opinion polling as well."
— Pierre Fontaine , Executive
"We don't ask people to tick boxes - they have a conversation with an AI."
— Pierre Fontaine , Executive
"Response rates to surveys have fallen sharply, from over 30% in the 1990s to below 5% today."
— Stéphane Le Brun , Academic
"LLMs can really move people’s attitudes towards presidential candidates and policies, and they do it by providing many factual claims that support their side."
— David Rand , Academic
"this finding – which was validated using politically balanced groups of laypeople – mirrors the often-replicated finding that social media users on the right share more inaccurate information than users on the left."
— Gordon Pennycook , Academic
Key People
David Rand is a professor at Cornell University specializing in computing and information science.
Gordon Pennycook is an associate professor of psychology at Cornell University.
Pierre Fontaine is the 28-year-old engineer who founded the AI opinion poll company Naratis in 2025.
Stéphane Le Brun is an AI consultant discussing the decline in survey response rates.
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All Coverage
It's cheaper and faster to collect people's opinions using AI, but will it make polls more accurate?
A Dartmouth study showing that artificial intelligence can rig public opinion polls has been recognized as one of the most significant pieces of scientific research published last year. The research documents a striking vulnerability at the heart of modern social science, where autonomous AI agents can complete online surveys with coherent responses that evade nearly all existing detection methods.
Collecting opinions is time-consuming work. AI agents are being employed to conduct in-depth qualitative interviews, aiming for speed and cost reduction while maintaining accuracy. While AI offers benefits like richer data and real-time insights, concerns about accuracy, trust, and potential misuse remain, suggesting a hybrid human-AI approach for now.
AI is being used to conduct opinion polls, offering faster and cheaper data collection. Companies like Naratis are employing AI agents to conduct in-depth qualitative interviews, aiming for speed and cost reduction while maintaining accuracy. While AI offers benefits like richer data and real-time insights, concerns about accuracy, trust, and potential misuse remain, suggesting a hybrid human-AI approach for now.
An exploration of how AI is transforming opinion polling, making it faster and more cost-effective, but raising questions about accuracy and trust.
A discussion on the potential of AI to enhance the accuracy of opinion polls, highlighting both benefits and challenges.
Research indicating that AI chatbots can significantly influence voter opinions, raising concerns about their impact on democratic processes.
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