AXIOS (Neal Rothschild) - Synthetic everything is warping America
A shadowy polling firm confessed this week to faking survey results in two marquee races — then claimed the entire operation was a "short-term social experiment" on misinformation. Why it matters: An AI-enabled flood of synthetic and outright fabricated content is wreaking havoc on reality, poisoning the signals people rely on to understand politics, business and culture. Catch up quick: Median Strategies, a previously unknown polling outfit with little public footprint, surfaced this summer with two blockbuster surveys that were quickly absorbed into the political conversation. - In Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary, Median's fake poll showed democratic socialist Francesca Hong leading Milwaukee County Executive David…
What practice has The Atlantic dubbed "Sloptimization"?
Sloptimization refers to companies seeding the web with product rankings that favor their own offerings, with the intent that chatbots may absorb and repeat these rankings to consumers.
Q&A ID 7d7f5d9b-f9a9-427f-ba76-e13c0daf52d6
How were AI-enabled robocalls used to interfere with the 2024 New Hampshire Democratic primary?
Robocalls used AI to imitate Joe Biden's voice, which discouraged thousands of people from voting.
Q&A ID e78e15cd-ad27-404b-9312-9035e3a44844
What reason did Median Strategies give for faking survey results in two marquee races?
The firm claimed the entire operation was a "short-term social experiment" on misinformation.
Q&A ID c2e243be-8515-4d59-9061-ea6e04d60886
How did Median Strategies report the Los Angeles mayoral race results before the survey was exposed as bogus?
Median reported that Mayor Karen Bass was leading city council member Nithya Raman by nearly 12 points.
Q&A ID b3ae0cf1-5a34-479c-9087-e9c842beba5f
