{"id":299204,"date":"2021-07-15T00:11:52","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T21:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/ai-can-stop-politicians-and-scientists-from-manipulating-surveys\/"},"modified":"2021-07-15T00:11:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T21:11:52","slug":"ai-can-stop-politicians-and-scientists-from-manipulating-surveys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-can-stop-politicians-and-scientists-from-manipulating-surveys\/","title":{"rendered":"#AI can stop politicians and scientists from manipulating surveys"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a396e4210f6f\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a396e4210f6f\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-can-stop-politicians-and-scientists-from-manipulating-surveys\/#Science_and_politics\" >Science and politics<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-can-stop-politicians-and-scientists-from-manipulating-surveys\/#Where_does_AI_come_in\" >Where does AI come in?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#AI can stop politicians and scientists from manipulating surveys<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image?fit=796%2C417&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F07%2Fpolitics.jpg&amp;signature=7ad3b732007a1447ad0f904e34aef409\" \/><\/p>\n<div>When opposing Libyan forces signed a cease-fire last year, it wasn\u2019t the savvy of politicians or the diplomacy of ambassadors who brokered the peace. It was the United Nations and a relatively unknown AI startup.<\/p>\n<p>That startup is called <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/hello.remesh.ai\/market-research-platform-b?kw=remesh&amp;cpn=1384536389&amp;utm_campaign=1384536389&amp;adgroupid=53825098526&amp;utm_content=486574726940&amp;utm_term=remesh&amp;utm_source=googleads&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwlrqHBhByEiwAnLmYUJVy85ST-Xq8Y3jsBOuwxWy2y7Roiw17Z4awKhBsnYnshfqs9rBy5hoCajoQAvD_BwE\">Remesh<\/a>, and it builds tools that allow organizations to conduct surveys in real-time with more than 1,000 people simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, the system lets you surface insights from a live audience. For example: if you wanted to poll 100 people about the taste of a new candy, you\u2019d traditionally send them a questionnaire and then tally the answers to see what the majority thought.<\/p>\n<p>But with Remesh, you can ask follow-up questions in near real-time to give survey takers the opportunity to expand or explain.<\/p>\n<p>And, rather than task some poor team of humans with trying to moderate hundreds or thousands of people\u2019s answers at once, the AI does all the heavy lifting near-instantaneously. Remesh basically turns the survey results into a conversation with the people taking the survey, as they\u2019re taking it.<\/p>\n<p>This probably sounds a little promo-y, but AI is far too often a solution looking for a problem. In the case of Remesh, its products <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ear to be the solution to a lot of very real, very important problems.<\/p>\n<p>Best of all, this <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> is already out here.<\/p>\n<p>The UN credits the Remesh platform with assisting its peace-seeking efforts in Libya by providing a technological method by which the people \u2014 not just the politicians \u2014 could make their voices heard.<\/p>\n<p>It can be incredibly difficult to poll people stuck in a war-torn country. The Remesh platform made it possible not only to reach them, but to turn political polls and UN surveys into actual conversations.<\/p>\n<p>Per the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2021\/04\/23\/ai-un-peacekeeping\/\">Washington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Participants in Yemen and Libya were asked to visit a Web link, answer open-ended questions and reply to polls on their smartphones. They were asked to identify which community they represent or which party they strongly identify with. All the information was shared with local political figures who could respond live on TV or act according to what the audience says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Science_and_politics\"><\/span>Science and politics<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><i>Some<\/i><span> scientists and politicians will say or do anything to serve their agenda. And, for both, the most powerful tool at their disposal when it comes to ducking peer-review and\/or fact-checkers is the almighty <\/span><i>survey.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span>If the people agree with your politics, or your study subjects confirm your research ideas, your arguments become all the more convincing. Unfortunately, political polls and scientific surveys are incredibly easy to manipulate. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Politicians will frame questions in ways that work for them no matter how a respondent answers using tactics designed to prey upon human biases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span>Should the US leave its borders wide-open so criminals can destroy our way of life,\u201d for example, is an entirely different question than \u201cshould the US help refugees whose lives were destroyed by war, famine, and poverty?\u201d \u2013 yet both are essentially asking what the respondent\u2019s views on immigration are. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">science<\/a>, the same issues arise. Writer Ben Lillie penned an excellent blog post describing this problem when they covered the public reaction to an alleged scientific study indicating that \u201c80% of respondents to a survey would be in favor of labeling food that contains DNA.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Lillie properly points out that it\u2019s ridiculous to imagine 8 out of 10 people with typical educations not knowing that all living things contain DNA. They even mention several sources showing surveys indicating most people have a passing understanding that DNA is present in all life and contains our genetic code.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It\u2019s only when you see the so-called survey the data was drawn from that things start to make sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Per <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/tumblr.benlillie.com\/post\/108569325062\/do-80-of-americans-not-know-theres-dna-in-food\">Lillie\u2019s post<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Imagine a survey taker who\u2019s just had a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a> of questions on their preferences about food and is in the middle of a survey on government regulation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>They encounter the question \u201cWould you support mandatory labels on foods containing DNA?\u201d What\u2019s more likely, that they don\u2019t know that DNA is in all living things, or that they assume they\u2019ve misunderstood the question and it refers to \u201cmodified DNA\u201d or \u201cartificial DNA\u201d or something else?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This seems like a classic case of priming.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Priming is when you get a survey-taker to give the answer you want them to by setting them up with leading questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For example, if you wanted a group of people\u00a0to express negativity towards fast food, you might first ask \u201cdo you think eating healthy is important for children?\u201d before asking \u201cdo you think fast food restaurants belong in your community?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>However, if you wanted a positive sentiment you might set up the second question by first asking \u201cdo you think it\u2019s important for families on the go to have access to inexpensive meals?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Where_does_AI_come_in\"><\/span><span>Where does AI come in? <\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>There are myriad organizations and agencies dedicated to spotting bias in both political and scientific endeavors. Unfortunately, the two domains use survey manipulation in very different ways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Pollsters typically don\u2019t hide their crafty questioning methods. Most political polls are made public and it never fails to suprise the mainstream <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a> and voter advocacy groups when most of them feature questions that are obviously designed to elicit a specific answer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unfortunately, the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a> public doesn\u2019t care. Pollsters don\u2019t need to worry about whether respondents are savvy about survey bias, because the average poll-taker is largely ignorant about the issues they\u2019re opining on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Note: There are numerous reputable polling agencies, but the majority of political polls are conducted by agencies representing political parties or organizations that tend to lean towards one side of the political binary. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In science, the issue\u2019s near the complete opposite. Many scientists take great pains to craft unbiased questions. And when they let one slip through, it\u2019s usually caught in peer-review.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>However, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2254236\/\">it\u2019s far too often the case<\/a> that scientists will either omit survey questions when they write the research and merely summarize the gist of the survey. Worse, many will use colloquial terminology to ask manipulative questions during the survey, but use scientific jargon that sounds less biased when summarizing responses in their research papers. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>An AI system that works somewhat like the Remesh platform could revolutionize both fields and offer protections to the general public that simply aren\u2019t possible otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Objectively, we could solve the survey manipulation problem by doing away with polls and surveys all-together and, instead, having one-on-one conversations to understand what voters and study subjects really think. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This, of course, is unrealistic. It would be impossible to ask all 6.7 million people in Libya exactly how they feel about the current political situation, for example, because even if you only spent 10 minutes per person it would take <\/span><i>127 years<\/i><span>. Not to mention we\u2019re right back to hoping the pollster or surveyor isn\u2019t biased, corrupt, or ignorant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But AI can pay attention to thousands of streams of data simultaneously in real-time. We can do away with traditional polls and surveys by using AI to not only present the questions and record the answers, but to identify bias and collate and interpret the results in real-time. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This would create transparency and hold those asking the questions accountable for any misleading questions, intentional or otherwise. Furthermore, it would give pollsters and scientists the opportunity to ask follow-up questions, explain confusion, and deal with quirky data immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As long as the AI worked as a referee to keep the people asking the questions from using <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Response_bias\">well-known manipulation techniques<\/a>, we could turn soft polling into hard data. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This isn\u2019t a solution without its own problems though. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Humans are often ignorant or corrupt, which makes us excellent manipulators. AI can\u2019t choose to lie or cheat. That makes it great for moderation, but <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/07\/upshot\/were-all-a-little-biased-even-if-we-dont-know-it.html\">we still have to worry about bias<\/a> because it\u2019s created by humans and trained on data that\u2019s curated by humans. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/politicians-scientists-manipulate-surveys-ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#AI can stop politicians and scientists from manipulating surveys&#8221; When opposing Libyan forces signed a cease-fire last year, it wasn\u2019t the savvy of politicians or the diplomacy of ambassadors who brokered the peace. It was the United Nations and a relatively unknown AI startup. That startup is called Remesh, and it builds tools that allow&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":299205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/neural?filter_last=1&fit=1280,640&url=https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/07\/politics.jpg&signature=00b8d77b595e77a963661da1c32573a1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}