I just consulted 54 trillion "people" who agree that this is idiotic.

[tzafrir@tooot.im]

@Natasha_Jay
Original article seems to be:
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/19/olivia-walton-heartland-forward-maternal-health

I'm not sure where the link with the words "silicon sampling" pointed to.

[ohir@social.vivaldi.net]

@jawarajabbi @Natasha_Jay
> I can make shit up too and I'll do it cheaper than an AI

No and no. Was falsifying the raw material so easy no single person could catch it and get dissertations retracted.

And if you want to fill out 1,008 questionnaires for $100 I think I might have a gig for ya

[gainfullydozy@mastodon.online]

@Natasha_Jay So they'll assemble these "models" from essentially "fossilized" pre-slop human-generated data, fold in reams of more recent gen-AI-slop, cram that all into black boxes owned and run by sociopathic billionaires, and use the output to make major decisions affecting the lives of millions/billions?

Seems fine, what could POSSIBLY immediately and irrevocably go wrong for almost all of us?

[rapsneezy@mastodon.social]

@aadeacon @Natasha_Jay

on the other hand, the rest of the world might gain some relief from a US Empire that is busy shooting itself in the foot

[unlofl@mstdn.social]

@Natasha_Jay Oh my god they're reporting Kalshi markets like polling data how could this get any worse?

... ok, this is worse.

[david_chisnall@infosec.exchange]

@Natasha_Jay

On the surface, I can see why people would understand the idea behind this, and it wouldn’t be completely nonsense if the training data for LLMs were representative. But there are so many reasons why their axiom is flawed.

[guigsy@mstdn.social]

@Natasha_Jay because LLMs never make up shit, confuse unrelated subjects or hallucinate! Wow.

[matt@istheguy.com]

@Natasha_Jay

simple and tantalizing

ctrl-w

ctrl-q

poweroff

[kern@hol.ogra.ph]

@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt oh no no

[mook@possum.city]

@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt axios is basically an arm of the US state dept at this point, notice how they're getting some much exclusive coverage from the white house

[mnspy@mastodon.online]

@Natasha_Jay

WTAF

[knutson_brain@sfba.social]

@Natasha_Jay
“…no people were involved in the creation of these opinions…” ‍️

[lemonlolita@calckey.world]

@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt
If you ever wondered how polling could be less useful, reliable ...

[coolcalmcollected@mastodon.social]

@unlofl @Natasha_Jay

"how can it be worse?" is the same incantation as "what could possibly go wrong?"

and as we all know, incantations can only lead to tears

[bshn@hachyderm.io]

@Natasha_Jay it is unbelievable how some people can come up with such business ideas!
1. Buy one pricey GPU
2. Establish "polling company" entity
3. Collect orders, run simulations, earn bucks

[nothacking@infosec.exchange]

@david_chisnall @Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt

... and LLMs are intentionally skewed to be "helpful" and not praise Hitler.

It turns out the average internet comment is rather nasty and people don't want that. The average internet user is probobly quite a bit better, but LLMs are trained on text, not people.

[doctormo@floss.social]

@knutson_brain @Natasha_Jay

That's got to be a book title in the future, right?

[ghostrunner@hachyderm.io]

@Natasha_Jay this DESPITE the foundational study's Conclusion that it is inaccurate.

https://openaccess-api.cms-conferences.org/articles/download/978-1-964867-73-1_45

[nilz@norden.social]

@Natasha_Jay

Is this SIMULACRON-3 ??

[knutson_brain@sfba.social]

@doctormo hmm…