Semafor has written a couple of times about the power of AI in polling — take Aaru, a company that uses synthetic AI personalities instead of humans in political polls and surveys.
That’s one method, but Google’s Jigsaw recently tried something else: polling actual people using an AI chatbot and letting them continue chattering about whatever is on their mind. A recent experiment used the method to facilitate a “national conversation” between 2,400 people. Earlier in the year, Jigsaw helped facilitate what became a 4,000-person online “town hall” in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Jigsaw CEO Yasmin Green told me she believes it could be a way to use AI to improve political discourse.
“We asked people going in, ‘Do you feel heard by fellow Americans?’ And 40% of people said yes. After just an hour in this virtual conversation, that number jumped to 68%,” she said. “Maybe that’s the thing we need to build on top of, giving people a sense of participation and feeling heard. That is a human need, and there’s no online offering at the moment that gives us that.”