Could AI create usable “fake” research data?
Spoiler Alert: Another **Chat GPT changes everything** post
What else in the future could be different in MRX? One thing that might very well happen is the issue of fake responders becomes impossible to manage or even detect. And that might be a good thing.
This begs a really big and difficult question - is it fundamental that research is conducted amongst human beings? Sounds counter intuitive, but the answer might be not necessarily.
So let's say there is a defense of real people's opinions. It's only required because there's also an argument for the value of AI respondents in the future.
One only has to look at the modelled responses of the nascent Chat GPT to imagine what in 5 or even 10 years’ time will come out of its…..results bar, speaker or even….mouth?
From a quant research perspective, this could predict two markets in the future. Very cheap, almost instant sample using AI responders, used by some people some of the time. And with that volume and value removed from the traditional market, a more expensive, high quality human sample used by most people most of the time.
Research platforms could even include 1,000 responses when you hit go, modelling how normal people would normally respond. If it was free would you NOT look at it? And if it could be used somehow it would gain a price point.
After all, when we ask 1,000 people to represent millions of people, and start weighting their relative influence are we not already "synthesising” the reality being represented. Using AI to perhaps synthesise millions of people into a represenative 1,000 set of responses is arguably more logical, than extrapolating real poeple to the limits of tolarable error (and often way beyond).
In fact this shift has taken place in many other markets. Luxury goods. Music. Movies. Sugar. Meat. Fabrics. Even Cannabis. Manufactured, synthetic commodities eventually displace their organic ancestors.
The key will be labelling so people know what they're buying and what they're paying for. If that can happen, being able to choose between synthetic sample and human sample would actually be an improvement on the sample market today.
