On May 23rd, we hosted an AI Deep Dive Session in collaboration with the Department of Political Science and the Vanderbilt Poll with Josh Clinton from the College of Arts and Science, where we explored how AI can transform the way scholars, journalists, policymakers, and the public interact with survey data. Clinton, the Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair and Co-Director of the Vanderbilt Poll who also serves as Senior Election Analyst for NBC News, outlined a vision for “Pollscape”—a web app and large-language-model interface designed to make ten years of Vanderbilt Poll results accessible through intuitive, conversational experiences.
Highlights:
- Purpose: Democratize survey analysis by creating a plug-and-play platform that empowers non-coders to explore, visualize, and discover insights from poll data without specialized statistical training.
- Focus Areas: Building transparent, conversational interfaces that can ingest questionnaires, toplines, and micro-data while surfacing related historical questions and subgroup breakdowns.
- AI Applications: Leveraging large language models to auto-generate appropriate visualizations, suggest connections across historical surveys, and enforce statistical guardrails to prevent misleading inferences.
Session Insights:
- The discussion explored AI pipelines for cleaning, harmonizing, and indexing ten years of bi-annual state and annual Nashville survey data into a coherent, searchable system.
- Collaboration between political science and data science expertise is essential for building platforms that balance user accessibility with statistical rigor.
- Pollscape aims to scale beyond Vanderbilt Poll data—ultimately allowing any researcher to upload a survey and have the platform handle the heavy lifting of analysis and presentation.
Conclusion:
The AI Deep Dive with Josh Clinton showcased how AI can revolutionize survey transparency and public access to polling data. This session provided a unique opportunity for those interested in political science, data science, HCI, and public opinion research to engage in meaningful discussion about making rigorous analysis accessible to all.
Are you interested in hosting a future AI Deep Dive? Contact us at datascience@vanderbilt.edu.