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Synthetic public opinion polling: AI personas don't always change their minds like real voters do
A voter surveyed in October may give a different answer by January. An AI persona might not, depending on how it's built.
AI Summary
Jennifer Stromer‑Galley, a professor in the School of Information Studies, warns that synthetic polling—where firms generate hundreds or thousands of AI personas using large language models, existing polling data and demographic information—may not capture the natural shift in voter opinions over time. Real voters surveyed in October often give different answers by January, a change that many AI‑based personas might not exhibit depending on their construction. This limitation fuels her caution about relying on synthetic stand‑ins for focus groups and surveys.
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