Polling response rates are dropping. AI chatbots could be the solution.
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 September 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this tense election year, polling is top of mind. But collecting polling data has become harder. It often relies on people actually answering the phone and then speaking frankly to a pollster, both of which are becoming less common. The result has been data that is less predictive, and repeated misses in recent elections have made the public much more skeptical. Polling, it seems, needs an update for the digital age. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Bruce Schneier, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, who says AI can help.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi I'm Kai Rizdahl the host of How We Survive |
| 0:03.4 | It's a podcast from Marketplace. In 1986, before I was a journalist, |
| 0:08.3 | I was flying for the Navy. |
| 0:09.7 | Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. |
| 0:14.4 | It was the cold war, and my first deployments were intercepting Russian bombers. |
| 0:18.6 | Today, though, there's another threat out there, climate change. |
| 0:22.5 | This could be the warmest year on record. |
| 0:24.6 | Climate change is here. |
| 0:25.7 | Temperatures here are warming faster than anywhere on Earth. |
| 0:29.5 | And while the threat seems new, |
| 0:31.6 | the Pentagon's been funding studies on climate change since the 1950s. |
| 0:35.9 | I think we will put our troops and our forces at higher risk if we don't recognize the impact of climate change. |
| 0:44.7 | This season, we go to the front lines of the climate crisis |
| 0:47.5 | to see how the military is preparing for the threat. |
| 0:51.0 | Listen to how we survive, |
| 0:52.3 | wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:55.0 | Pulling people has gotten tricky, so why not just ask a chatbot? |
| 1:02.0 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. |
| 1:05.1 | I'm Megan McCarty Carino. In this |
| 1:18.0 | Tents election year, polling is everywhere. |
| 1:20.0 | We have a brand new ABC News ipso's poll just out this morning. |
| 1:23.8 | The latest morning consult poll. |
... |
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