Latest / 775 Alive / Ep035: Rural Identity and AI (Guest: Adrianne Marsh, CEO, Altum Insight)

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Ep035: Rural Identity and AI (Guest: Adrianne Marsh, CEO, Altum Insight) · 775 Alive

• 0:03
  [music] Welcome to the 775 Alive podcast, your rural Nevada headquarters for decoding politics, economics, and general global shenanigans. [music] I'm Crystal Newton, your business strategist, breaking down why Nevada's hustle is stronger than a sagebrush root in a windstorm. Here with my trusty co-host, Scott Gavorsky, PhD historian, here to explain the smart lessons of history, even if we are likely to ignore them. Grab your boots for a wild ride through today's most important news. [music ends] Scott - Well, welcome back to 775 Alive. We're scattered. I'm still up here in in very cold and snowy Elko, and Crystal's down in Vegas. But we are joined today by Adrianne Marsh with Altum Insight. So, thank you for joining us.
• 0:51
  Scott - Yeah. So, go ahead and give us a little bit of your background and we're looking forward to a really interesting discussion. It'll become ap parent here in a minute. So, go ahead.
• 1:00
  thanks again. My name's Adrianne Marsh and I'm from a small town in Michigan, Linden, Michigan. I got my start in politics there, kind of doing scrappy stuff at the bottom, and eventually started working on the Hill for a member of Congress from Northern Michigan. So about as red of a place as a Democrat could have probably won once upon a time and, and eventually got into the Senate world. I worked for Claire McCaskill, Michael Bennett. I did a couple of presidentials from Gore to Kerry to Obama. And then over the years I got into consulting where I've done PR, mail, TV, digital. And most of the time that I've been working, I have found myself drawn to the rural and red space for Democrats, which has been a narrowing field, as you might imagine, for us. So after many years of watching races that could have won, that should have won, as I sometimes joke where places like Jesus Christ himself could run as a Democrat and couldn't win. But turns out it's just because we're not communicating messages in [video feed pause] as well as we could be. So when a friend of mine a few years ago introduced me to a man who had been studying brain science through the narrative and its effect on brains and how you could merge corporate market techniques with that study and potentially move voters, I thought this is incredible. Why are, why is this something that's standard practice in the corporate space and should be standard practice here and yet it's not? I have all kinds of theories about why that is. But my my goal right now, my obsession is to research that . . . it's in my view the closest chance that we have in politics, but certainly for the party I'm with, the Democratic Party, to building back trust with voters, particularly voters that we've lost ground with over the over the many years and decades. So what we do is we've adapted AI-enhanced corporate market research methods and have introduced it, sort of a narrative process designed to drive behavioral change in voters. And so that's what we're doing. That's what we do at Altum Insight. We've been doing a number of studies throughout the country, from independents in Montana to Gen Z Latinos in Arizona and Nevada to, to undecided voters in Michigan, to . . . we just recently talked to voters who don't always turn out to vote in North Carolina, just to figure out what they're thinking. Of course, we just got out of Nebraska with a study on AI, which you've recently talked about on your show. So, it's interesting how much you find out from voters by, by asking them the stories they tell themselves, instead of talking at them with the story you want them to understand, but asking them what do what is it that you believe about these things? You suddenly figure out where you fit into those stories and how you might connect with people differently to evolve that story in a way that might be more favorable to you. If we just stopped for a second and listened to people, we might actually have a chance to restore some trust and and make some good.
• 3:58
  team reached out to us on that Nebraska study, which is really why we want to talk with you today because it's a really interesting set of issues you found. I do want to preface this by saying, I'm not sure if you're aware, but uh Nebraska is a bit of the bête noire for Nevada in terms of states. The reason is, of course, Nevada comes into the Union 1864. Nebraska is shortly after. But the . . . where it comes up in Nevada politics is, of course, that Nebraska has maybe 5% of the lands owned by the federal government. Nevada's got 84%. So Nebraska always gets pointed to where the federal government actually sold the land and refuses to do it in Nevada. So, if you see anything from Nevada, somebody's going to throw up how bad Nebraska is. But this rural study in Nebraska really is interesting and there's some, there's some issues. So, would you like to just tell us a bit about the study and what you're finding and the thinking from the first part and then we could talk about that.
• 5:04
  into some of these studies with the idea that we just want to take a segment of voters and, and see what they have to sell us. Some you can ask them specifically things like what do you think, what do you think about democracy in America, was which we asked independents in Montana. In Nebraska we just literally went in and wanted to know what's going on with with rural voters and let's choose Nebraska. There's a handful of races going on there. Democrats are talking about trying to do more of, have more of a campaign presence in some of these states. And our theory is we're putting the cart before the horse. We're doing operational, strategic implementation without really understanding the the why or the how. Are we going to connect with these voters differently? How are we going to do it differently? We've lost ground. And so we went in to study voters and just figure out what's important here. And our head of research, Frank Spring, said we expected to figure out maybe a little bit about the cost of living. Affordability was the big topic last cycle. We thought for sure that's going to be the number one hot topic this time. Maybe a little bit about the trade stuff that's been happening, particularly in the agriculture space. Maybe about affordable health care particularly in rural communities. A lot of those more economically connected struggles. And as he said, kind of adorably, that we fell ass-backwards into a really big topic, which is the top of mind by far topic on people's minds, is how terrifying AI is. And they accept it's here. It's not going anywhere. But at the same time, they see it as a real potential threat to a way of life that they want to protect and preserve. They think, these voters which I can identify with. It's all of what showed up in the study was something that I hear from my family. It's when I go back for for holidays, this is what you hear from your friends and family that we live in a really special place being in rural communities. You know, your neighbors. My mom used to say, "You better be careful what you do in high school cuz I'll find out about it before you get home." And that's true. People are out to protect one another. They're about caring for one another. They're about making sure that the parts that make these places special are celebrated and passed on. And that's a really special thing that kind of has to happen with an in-person piece. And their thoughts about AI was not only can you not trust it because we've all seen that the the deer that are jumping on the trampoline that can't possibly be happening because the bear are doing it too. That's not true. But at the same time, they're also thinking that things like AI are sucking their kids into places that they don't want them to be. They don't want them to be, to not know what's right and wrong. They don't want them to look at things that may or may not be real. They can be impressions can be imposed upon people because of what they see. Divorcing your emotional relationship with images, which I think is something Crystal had mentioned in a previous episode. You have a really hard time disconnecting from the things that you see. Even if you do know it's not real, it's hard not to leave that impression in your brain. That influences particularly impressionable kids. Parents know that. People who are around kids know that and, and there's a real fear that we don't know how to protect kids from those impressions and how we can protect this way of life. And I think that that's something that's really poignant because I think we can . . . doesn't matter where you live that is something that I think we can all see as a real fear but you can understand how that is uniquely threatening to, to the rural way of life. Scott - Well, Crystal, AI, fears of AI is really your bailiwick. [laughter] of fascinated with your group and the research it's doing and you in particular, you're such a neat person. I . . . just from a 30,000, you know, vantage point looking down at what you're doing. You know, it sounds like you're . . . there's two-dimensional data sets and in business this is the true we study the consumer and you get these these markers like your ethnicity, your age, your, your location, your income and it's sort of it's in a way a two-dimensional way of looking at people and what your group does and correct me if I'm wrong, but you bring in the narrative aspect. So you take all that two-dimensional data and you add this third dimension of what's the narrative that people are following and how is that going to influence their decision making, their purchasing and of course for you the voting, right? And so I I listened to a bunch of your material last night and you really got the rule nailed down and I was fascinated to listen to you and of course you spoke to me because I was like I'm terrified of AI. She got that. That's awesome. Um and then you do this data and you deliver it to um candidates, campaign candidates, and then they try to transform that into policies, platforms, things like that. Do you do any work on how to bridge from data to actual real life implementation? Cuz it seems like that's the hard part where I'm like, okay, you as a Democrat, you've identified I'm scared of AI. How are you going to help me feel better about that? Do you do any kind of thinking like that in your research?
• 10:22
  Adrianne - We do think about that in our research. give your listeners a little bit of an idea of how this works. How does this research come to be? Because we do take the the ethnography piece of the research, the deep qualitative research, and ethnography essentially takes a small segment of voters. So we'll say in this particular study, there are 12 men and 12 women. they are all confined to Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X. We don't have as many Boomers in this study because if you get too far into the spectrum of generational divide, it almost becomes too wide. The thing that when I first learned about this research that I found so fascinating is that when we had done quantitative research in politics, one of the biggest things that you need to separate people are their propensity to be Democrats, Republicans or Independents, where they fall in a spectrum of 1 to 100, the most likely to support a Democrat versus the least likely to support a Democrat gives you a sense of where people are and how you might move them or connect with them based on what you're trying to do. That is not what ethnography does. it largely there are two big indicators. One is is gender to some degree but mostly it's our experience of time. The thing that we all have a marker in our lives is how we experienced a war or the Challenger explosion or an economic downturn. Our experience together in time is what binds us more than almost anything else that we've lived through in our lives, our lived experiences. So it's important for us to confine those things in order to study these things. So we did a study of two of men and women in they were a little bit on the younger side of a generational spectrum and then they all had to be in a particular zip code or part of the state that was considered less dense enough to be considered rural. So there were all kind of stipulations into how people entered the study. We did not put a political lens on them. They are not necessarily registered voters because our belief is to influence a voter does not just mean communicating to the voter but it's understanding the network around a voter to be able to influence them. So we want to include everyone not just registered voters but we also once we get them in the study want to understand that we have a pretty split spectrum of Democrats, Republicans and Independents. In this case we were a little bit shyer on the Democrat but you might imagine why. Because there are fewer of them and so it's, it's probably proportionate to the representation of a community. So once we get people into this, into this panel then they spend four days with an ethnographer and the idea is on the first day you ask them things like uh what's important to you or uh what do you do for a living and how did you come to this or how many kids do you have and why do you live in this community? You ask big, broad lifestyle value-based ideas about people so that when you get the sample of 24 to 30 people you have a a good sense of what the ties, the through-lines are, what are the tie that binds and I often tell people the reason why we do this is because it's kind of like . . . . I tell people all the time I'm a big Lions fan. I'm from Michigan, so I'm a big Detroit Lions fan and if you were to come to me and say you know what I'm going to make you a Kansas City Chiefs fan I would say absolutely, absolutely not. And I would literally put on my Lions jersey and I would tell you how much I love Dan Campbell and there's not a chance that you're going to convince me otherwise. But if you come to me and say like, before we even talk about football, hey, where are you from? How do you spend your time? What would what did you do growing up? If I eventually get into football, by the time you learn I'm a devout Lions fan, you'll understand what the best case is to make to me about why I might consider being a Chiefs fan. you would know what to connect with me on and you would have earned my trust to be able to have that conversation. I wouldn't necessarily be coming to you with guns blazing because I'm not coming to you with the fight. I'm coming to you with connection. And that's what we try to do in this four days. We start with these big topics knowing eventually that we are going to plot out this eight-step narrative process and the questions that we're going to connect with you on over that four days are largely going to inform us along those lines. Who do you see as maybe a potential, like villain in the world? Who do you think is a champion in the world? What do you think are the most important things that need to happen? What are your biggest fears and threats? By the time those four days are over, we understand what an intact narrative or maybe a a fragmented narrative looks like in your life. What's the story you're telling yourself about the world? Where do we fit into it? And how might we understand what motivates you to figure out how we might influence that story moving forward. That's the goal of what we do. And so this idea around AI was particularly important because it kind of fits into your question. What do we do about it? How ideally the campaigns are a lot about communicating at people enough to get them to hear an impression and change their mind. So this is another a little bit nerding out. So, I apologize that I'm on a diatribe here. But when I first learned about this, another thing that was I found really profound was that a model that's used to influence people in sometimes the corporate space or or just generally is what they call the stairway model of behavioral change. And essentially what that does is it takes people from active listening to showing empathy, building support, exercising influence, and then behavioral change. In a normal campaign or in a normal ad cycle, for example, even if you're in the corporate space is a lot of time just exercising influence and expecting behavioral change. I'm going to tell you what we're doing and why you should like it and hope that you buy the product or vote for the person. But what happens in the stairway model behavioral change is I heard you. I hear what you're saying. What's important? I'm going to show you that I heard you. I'm going to establish trust because I've shown you that this is important and I've built it into the thing I'm doing. And now I'm going to ask you to trust me and do the thing I'm asking you to do. And the interesting thing about this model is that this is what hostage negotiators use to get people to change a very strong and committed action. This is someone who's coming to them they do not trust. They're . . . they couldn't be more committed to what they're doing. And somehow this very gifted person has to use this this step system to be able to build these things. They often talk to them about why they're doing this or what's motivating them, what's concerning them. By the time they get to behavioral change, trust is the throughline. And that's what is so important that we need to be building back with voters is listening to them so that that becomes the throughine for trust to get them to do something that frankly could have a huge impact in their lives. I sometimes compare it to buying toothpaste. One of the things that we studied a little bit was how ads work into consumer products. And this is not about buying toothpaste. This is about how we fund education for our kids and we make healthcare more affordable and we protect communities and the things that are important to us. If we don't understand what voters need from us, how are we going to change policy in a way that reflects that? Ideally, this does both. Helps us communicate with voters better and then also continues to build on that trust by doing what we say we're going to do through good smart policy. I realize that really long-winded version of what you were looking for, but hopefully that did the trick.
• 17:58
  Scott - And don't worry about nerding out. into Census data, which is the particular hobby of mine. But that, but you mentioned the issue trust. Because one of the things I found interesting about the report is identifying from an ethnographic perspective this rural identity which appears to be from your research one of the strongest and most consistent, right? It doesn't seem to be a lot of variation and a lot of change. But also at the root of that rural identity is a deep distrust of urban audiences, right?
• 18:34
  And of urban people coming in. And of course, one of the reasons for 775 Alive is we're trying to bridge that gap within the state, if nothing else, between that rural and urban divide. Can you talk a little bit before we get into AI, just because that was a fascinating dimension is that there is something really different about how the rurals perceive themselves versus the rest of the country.
• 18:56
  Adrianne - Yeah. I found it to be interesting, community there is an identity that somehow you're a little that you're different in a way that like nobody else is cool enough to understand. you know, like you grew up with these stories and it's an ingrouping that's special. It's a club you have to be born into to really understand in a way. Certainly, you can come into a rural community and you can feel like you're part of it, but to grow up in a rural community is like earning a special stripe and and like anybody can become urban and that's great and wonderful and there's a lot to celebrate about the urban way of life. I live in Washington DC, in full disclosure, and there are parts of it I don't love but you know there's a lot of benefits to being here too. And the interesting thing that we found about the study is that there was nothing more the ingrouping and the identity was the strongest and most common. The perceptions of one another and this way of life was commonly shared in this incredibly intense way, in a way that was far more varied. In others . . . in other studies where the where the urbanicity as we call it is a little bit more diverse where something might be a mix of both or it's exurban. The idea that we move this exclusively to this very confined rural segment meant that we got to study it a little bit more closely, but it was also just the shared experiences were very similar and it and it was just so celebrated. They they really do love being where they're from and I very much identify with that. The interesting part that I found to be most disappointing, however, is that their perceptions of the Democratic Party was that we were the urban party. And urban wasn't bad, per se. It just wasn't rural. And if it's not rural, it's not as good. And I get that. It's something that I hope to change because when I became a Democrat. I came to be a Democrat because my parents are working-class and and you know there was just a grit about the Democratic party that meant workers. It meant something like just a blood, sweat, and tears that I found very satisfying. And I'm also I'm a Presbyterian. I'm a pretty strong Christian. And I found that the values of the Democratic Party spoke to those those values in me personally. I know that's not everyone's experiences and I don't begrudge anyone that, but there was so much about those pieces that spoke to the rule of way of life that have we've lost those connections over time. People don't understand that about the Democratic Party. And why that hasn't been communicated effectively, I don't know. But we really do need to get back to articulating that better so people understand that that's a choice they have.
• 21:52
  Crystal - Yeah. I actually . . .
• 22:01
  group didn't think this was the thing, but I did. And maybe I shouldn't be sharing this with you, but I really want for this country to have two strong, really good parties. And I know that you guys focused on the AI component as being a place where you could come in and help rural people feel better about AI, but you guys hit on something else that really resonated with at least me, and that was this whole thing. So, you have this thing where there's active voter identities and inactive. And you I've correctly identified that the rural identity is the most important active identity for our class of voters. So I was like that's an awesome observation. Now you did point out that one of the characters that makes rural defining characters was that we're kind to each other and that we we really a community is very important to us. And I remember one of your team members brought up the the difference between kind and joy. And that's gonna sound like a really weird and interesting kind of track to go down in this conversation, but your group has hit onto something that I watched the Kamala Harris campaign fail at miserably cuz they were about joy, joy, joy, joy. And there was this mistake and it's a very subtle, subtle thing to miss. But kindness and joy are distinctly different things. And we really we believe in kindness and altruism. And that doesn't always come in the package of joy and happiness, but we believe in doing the right thing and taking care of each other whether or not it's joyful and happy. And so I wanted to applaud you before we get into the AI thing. I wanted to applaud your group for really identifying that and pointing that out because I think a lot of us rural Republicans especially just were really turned off by the message of joy and just having it shoved in our face. So kudos to you on that.
• 24:13
  for as much as you're giving us credit for and I appreciate the nod and at least being able to articulate it, but all of this came directly from voters. We just sort of sort it out to understand the way that they're articulating these ideas are very different. I agree with you. I think that I think I have a lot of critiques about last cycle, election cycle and you know I obviously voted for Harris and I think that she was a good candidate. I think the way that the entire . . .
• 24:42
  our whole situation came to be was less than ideal continues to be a bit of a thorn. But I think they were they were trying to be a juxtaposition to something that came across negative and harsh and maybe confrontational. And what it did is it didn't see people where they were. People were struggling for any number of reasons. And they were still trying to figure out who who's both to blame for this maybe, but also who's the answer to this. And if you're not, if you're, if you're joyful about something that feels hard in life, it feels like you're kind of not reading the room, like you're missing something. When you're right, there's such a big difference between you can be kind to someone even if you're going through hard times. It's difficult to be joyful and authentic about it. And you can be nice because we kept saying people were very clear that they wanted to be kind. Nice kept coming up. They wanted to be nice. You can be nice and still feel some pain in your life, but you can't fake joy if you're going through something hard. And I think we just seem to miss that. And that's where this where this research is so important is because we might have gotten a pullback that showed some indication that people wanted a contrast to the negativity and we took that. We read into we guessed. This is the thing that I keep saying is we don't have to be guessing. We sometimes put out these polls and polling by the way people want to keep saying what's the problem with polling. Polling is accurate but there are two things that are wrong sometimes with polling which is we are often guessing what to put in those instruments and the people who are guessing are people who have been consultants for 25 years who maybe haven't left Washington DC in god knows how long. They're not out there to connect with people. So they're in a boardroom deciding well let's put healthcare on there. Let's put education on there. Well, what if the out of the 10 things you put in an issue battery, it's the 15th thing that didn't make that list that actually is the thing that jumps off the page. Because if we went into this rural study expecting to talk about cost of living, affordability, healthcare, trade stuff, we would not have necessarily put AI on there. We might have put tech issues. AI is what jumped off the page and we now know to put that into the battery because we didn't have to guess. People told us this is what's really scaring the hell out of me right now and we need to be able to study that. And it's got to work in tandem. We have to do this kind of work because it will tell us people are not feeling joyful. They are they want something different than that harshness that we're getting from this side. But it it has to be mindful that we're all struggling. We can be kind and mindful at the same time. But you have to understand things are really hard right now and you've got to speak to that. One of the things I'll also just expand on in that regard is that we study Gen Z Latinos in Arizona. And one of the interesting things that we studied is that the group came to us and said, "We keep getting information back from our quantitative studies and from elsewhere that affordable housing is a big issue for people and we keep putting information out to this group about it and it's not coming back like it's connecting. We're not seeing any movement. Can you study this segment and see what's going on?" So we studied the segment and what came back was not was affordable housing. It was a big issue but it wasn't affordable housing like where does this fit in my budget? How do I afford my rent or my mortgage or . . . . It was this idea that there was that a lot of sacrifices had been made for them in to get to this moment in time and yet the economy was not set up for them to succeed. They had, they were working two jobs and doing the gig economy on top of it and and the idea that an aspirational goal of affording a home was not within reach for them. They were missing the whole story. This was not about affordable housing. This was about affording a dream and the dream was was sort of identified as a house as an indicator. And talk about a group that surprised us because of their you know, their in-grouping. They actually didn't identify as Latino first. They identified as American and Gen Z and then Latino. And because there was such this cultural connection through their generational experience through kind of this hard time where they were they weren't mad at anybody about how much they were set up for failure, but they just didn't see anybody advocating for how they might get there. They were willing to work as hard as it takes. They just didn't see that anyone was a champion. And if we had spoken to that and said, "We want to give you the tools to succeed and here's a policy that might help you do it." I bet we would have earned a lot of trust and what was scary about that study is that you would my assumption would be that that group based on their age and their demographic that they would be likely Democrats. It turns out if Mitt Romney were running for president that he would have won the whole, all of them over because that economic conservatism that was pragmatic and functional spoke to them in a way that Dem . . . they didn't believe Democrats could do that should be foretelling to us. We've got to get it together and connect with people differently.
• 29:50
  Scott - Well, let's . . . Yeah, and that . . . it's interesting you bring that up because you know, of course, Nevada is one of the seven swing states. And Crystal and I have done episodes talking about it, and one of the things that strikes us is that you know, if I could I could go into the history academic side, this concept of political cultures. I really do think rural communities have a different set of political cultures, where as Crystal mentioned you know, if you need something done, you go out and do it and just get it done. And the more urban perspective I think for a lot of us is if you need something done you, you put together the group, you lobby people to get it done for you. And I think that's a big dynamic.
• 30:37
  But I think where that ties in to this AI issue, which is interesting because you phrase it throughout this report of of this fear that AI is undermining that rural identity. How do you see AI doing that from the research you've done so far?
• 30:49
  Adrianne - I mean, it's it again, it really kind of comes down to both. I think it's probably two things if I had to nail it to a simple idea. One of it, one of them is just this lack of being able to understand what you can trust and what you can't trust. What can you believe and not believe? Who's out to get you and who's not? There's almost like this predatory feeling about it. One of the things that we asked, as you might recall from the presentation, was that we asked when was the last time basically things felt better to you? When was the last time that politics felt better to you, but generally that life was better? And the time that they could most frequently cite, and it was pretty much to some degree across the board, was before . . . before tech, before social media. They . . . which is interesting because one of the things that they said was a benefit to social media was that they were able to connect with people that they weren't able to connect with before. They were more globally connected or could find people that they had lost touch with. But it didn't offset the compromise with how strangely isolating it made people feel. It made people feel like there it celebrated conflict, that it fostered tensions and volatility in a way that those ideals are in contrast with the rural way of life where people celebrate kindness, where there's a sense of community that it doesn't necessarily matter what side of the aisle you are from. There's you look past that because you know people and and and those connections are often compromised behind the anonymity of like a name, a moniker or handle. And people can not be mindful and respectful in those spaces because they're not accountable to themselves and the impressions that they are left with. Because in a real community, your, you know, your reputation, your the identity that you have personally is something that holds its weight in time. You can't if if you show that you are a kind person, you're known in your small town for being a kind person. If you're persnickity or disrespectful, you got to live with that and you suffer those consequences. So, it's . . . you're highly incentivized to be kind and connected and community focused in a rural community because the consequences are lasting in a way that in other communities they're not. And to some degree, social media and heavily influenced with this heavy distrust tonal influence of AI over top of it, just exacerbates that idea that there are no consequences for not being honest and truthful and authentic. That is in direct contrast with everything that world communities celebrate. So I think that's one part of it. You know, I think the other is just this idea that that you get something more out of in-person connections. There's a . . . there's an element of perception that you get in hearing someone say something and feeling the emotive connection to that and and being able to communicate back and forth. There there is just a connectivity about in person that is valued I think um in some of these communities that we heard over and over and over again in this study. you just lose that in tech generally, but AI is just a direct threat to it because it's all fake. They just assume, now they assume everything's fake and they're not sure what to tell their kids about what to make of that, but they're terrified about what it's [clears throat] going to do in terms of compromising values, critical values.
• 34:28
  Scott - Go ahead, Crystal.
• 34:28
  Crystal - As usual, I'm very named business. Well done. Um, I wanted to ask kind of a fun question if you're open to it. Um, do you have predictions for this year's midterms?
• 34:41
  Adrianne - Do I have predictions?
• 34:49
  Adrianne - Oh. I am everything on deep level.
• 34:49
  Crystal - What are you seeing from for next for this year? I keep saying we've been prepping for midterms all last year. So, like it is this year. Here we go.
• 35:05
  feelings about this. So, my prediction is that that Democrats will do well. I'm . . . I have to say as in full disclosure, I'm a worst case scenario thinker that likes to be pleasantly surprised. So, I will I'm also I'm saying that because I keep hearing we're going to have, we're not going to have a problem in the House and that there's a chance we can win back the Senate. I like to think we should always run like we're going to lose. And so I predict we will probably do better than I thought we were going to do a year, from a year ago. But I also think that we should be, we should not take that for granted. And I also want to remind my party and not to sound too pessimistic, but a lot of the reason why we're even in this position to some degree is because and I hate to say this to Republicans because I feel for you. Uh, I think that this is probably not an easy moment in history for many people who are conflicted about what's going on within your party. I empathize with that on my own. But to some degree, Democrats are in a position to do well because the other side is to some degree punched themselves in the face a couple times. I mean, I don't know that it's fatal, but there are some things not going as well as they could for very similar reasons. I think they're overplaying a hand in in to some degree and I think that there are probably some independents being shaken loose. It might be motivating Democrats. It might even be resulting in some Republicans staying home. I have no idea. But if we win that will be why it because not because we've done something right. It's because we're enjoying something happening wrong on the other side which that will not always be the case. And it should be a forewarning to ourselves that that cannot be something that you rely on. That's not a strategy to wait for the other side to beat themselves in the face. My husband being a football fan, he's always like, "We need a turnover right now." Well, you can't. That's not a good way to win games is to wait for the other side to give you the ball. That's not the way that this works. I I understand it's something to celebrate. It's always fun when it happens. But the point is, you have to be you have to be more strategic. We have to be smarter about this. We have to start getting it right if we're going to earn back trust. We can't just always wait for the opportunity to hand us something delightful. I don't think that really answers your question the way you want to, but um that's . . .
• 37:19
  Crystal - You know for us type characters are a little bit puzzling to us and I don't know if on your side she makes more sense especially from your, you know, data analysis perspective. She obviously occupies one part of the Democratic Party and do you have any idea or thoughts on what her voice means for the Democratic Party? Is that a symbol of what's going to come from the Democratic Party or is she kind of just a trending thing right now?
• 37:53
  Adrianne - You know, I are, there are leaders within our party who have strong voices like AOC, and I think that I think that there are I think they probably represent their constituents well. I think they also because of the places that they're running from often um talk about issues and and maybe and maybe even approach challenging I guess arguments in a way that resonate with a lot of progressive Democrats in a way that makes them feel strong and really, um well just strong emotions. And I think to some degree when you feel like you need a voice that represents you and your representative maybe does not, if you're if you're a loud and proud progressive Democrat from Nebraska and you're, and your representative is either Republican or maybe a moderate Democrat who is saying things that represent and are in line with where you're from, but you personally feel something much deeper and someone like her is saying things that speak to you. Then if you were to take all of those people from all over the country who are missing that that light, that fire that they they want in someone else, then you're kind of coalescing that spectrum of the Democratic party in a way that feels big. And to some degree, people do need that. They need that inspiration. They need the motivation. And it's great that these candidates are benefiting from that so much because they're raising all kinds of money. They're getting great profiles. I think that's great. To say that that represents the Democratic party in every situation. I don't think that that's the case. And I think that's part of how we've lost ground as a party is that when we don't convey that we have a broader, deeper and more whole spectrum of our beliefs and the things that we represent and in the ways that we communicate these things, then the default is that that is what we are. And and that I think to some degree is the problem. I think it's great. I think what's being said is inspirational. I think that there is a grittiness and you know it's it's it she represents fight in a way that Democrats don't feel like we're doing anymore. I get why that's celebrated. It just needs to be articulated as an approach for what it is. And I think that is to get people excited and to show that there is some fight for that part of the party. But that is not the party as a whole. The party as a whole still needs to represent places like Nebraska and Nevada and and Michigan. There still has to be a place for that, too. And fight isn't what they need. What they need is thoughtful, mindful, kind, connected policy that meets the needs of our communities. Um, you know, salacious fight is just not what we need in those parts.
• 41:14
  Scott - And that . . . if I could go you touched about something earlier before we got on to the prediction thing. You know one of the things we're finding more and more is I think the term AI is used as a blackbox. But there are different versions of AI. So, so one I think that's generating a lot of concerns rightly is the Chat-GPT model based on the large language models that you know nobody's really sure how this is being put together. Nobody's sure how it thought. But I think the other problem is that um the some of the trust that's gone on and and Crystal and I have talked about this quite a bit about the use of AI in sort of the government sphere to analyze massive amounts of data. And one of the problems is rural communities already have relatively negative experiences with how data is constructed to look at rural areas. So, just one brief example. Of course, the Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates for 2024 are going to be released here in or yeah, 20 Yeah. Anyway, at the end of the month, the problem is if you're in an area that's more than 100,000 people, which is cities and states as a whole, they can compile those estimates every year. But if you're in rural communities, then statistically there's not enough people to compile them every year. So, they do five-year runs, right? And what that means is this data that's getting ready to come out for some place like Elko County, 60,000 people, roughly, is going to be estimating a population based on population data all the way back to 2019. So, pre-COVID. So in this big discussion for instance of where people are moving in the country if they're moving to rural communities that's not being shown in the data because how the data is structured. So I think there's also a concern that you know and a lot of places have been fighting that dynamic for years because so much funding and stuff is tied to these numbers that are, are sort of skewed against rural areas. And now you're going to add an AI who can't even look at it and say this doesn't make any sense. You know, our city has, for instance, more water connections than the Census Bureau is saying has households. How does that work? The AI can't take those
• 43:40
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: how are the future parts of this study going to in a sense disaggregate AI?
• 43:48
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: Adrianne - I mean that's . . . it's a Census data as I'd like. I think it's fascinating. I think um and the paradigm you're talking about, the the challenges that rural people that rural communities are facing in terms of what they do and don't get has been something tied to so many policies at various parts of the government that it it doesn't exactly favor communities like this for all kinds of reasons, but data is largely behind most of it. Some of it is budgetary structures and and and all that nonsense. But um but I think um you know one of the things you all talked about in the AI episode that I watched was how AI is used to some degree kind of like parenting was the the correlation that Crystal was making that that uh you can influence a child by what you give to the child the experiences that you give to the child. I mean, that's not true in every single way across the board, but by and large, the kind of things that will be important to them and the kind of ways that you can influence their trajectory in life has to do with what you provide them. The same is true of these large language models. I think um the interesting thing about the way that we do AI, it's we our entire situation, our entire process is enhanced by what we call AI, but it's a confusing term because um what we do on the ethnographic side is just quite literally transcribing and harvesting almost like a word bubble scenario to some degree. On the ethnographic side, it just gives us quick ways to organize the information so that a human brain can analyze it because it's very it's impossible for AI to do the work of a human ethnographer, but it can speed the process along. That's not really artificial intelligence. That's just that's just good data organizing. On the qualit-scale piece of what we do. It does take a huge large language model and what it does is a person enters into a conversation with a bot and it and if in the course of the conversation if we need to ask every person in a 1,000 person sample the same six questions. What it does in that conversation is that it will ask every single person the same six questions, but every single person will have a unique conversation with the bot. Because if I enter that conversation and you say, "What do you like most about rural life in Nevada?" Then what what I say what I might say is um I really I really like my neighbors. And so the bot will ask you if the first question is uh is to find out about your values, it might say um tell us what about your relationship with your neighbors has really fulfilled your value set. And that is how the conversation will evolve. It's intuitive, but it's harvesting all of that connection point because somewhere in the large language model, it will understand that the series of words it needs to say in response to what you've just said is how it bridges you to the next question. It makes it seamless and human. Now, the interesting thing about this, which is just a side note, is that the the the bot communication with people has been fascinating to watch because people will understand that the conversation with the bot is with a bot. It's human enough that they will that they'll have this very casual conversational back and forth and share all kinds of things that you would with your best girlfriend, but at the same time they know it's a bot. So, they will share things that they wouldn't share with their girlfriend because they know it's not human and it won't judge them. There's a confessional quality to it that has been a really interesting thing. The the crazy part about it is that it's better at at evolving a conversation than it is about analyzing the conversation because how you ask it to to look at that conversation is how it will interpret it. So until we get better about not just using uh you know millions and millions and millions of conversations to inform how a conversation should work, we have to tell it. We have to give it the instruction it needs to be able to ask it what did I mean? And that part we're still really far behind on as far as I can tell. I mean we're we're coming light years ahead. The bell curve is terrifying, but at the same time um you know it still can't do so much. And I I fear that places where um where you just don't have the same resources to advocate for that kind of asking, they're going to get left behind because it's going to prioritize. It's kind of like my mom used to tell me about standardized testing in urban schools that it would ask questions in the standardized tests that kids in who were like maybe less advantaged in rural, in urban places couldn't possibly know the reference points because they would never experience some of the things that they were being asked about. So it was unfair to them. The same thing is true of rural communities when it comes to some of this data advocated policymaking. It can't possibly represent people where there are fewer of you involved in how it's come to coming to be. So you're, you're automatically lacking advocacy because you're not involved in how the ingredients are getting baked into the pie. Yeah, that's really good. I mean, that's my theory. Don't take that to the bank. Scott - Well, it's it's a good one. It reminds me, of course, the the problem with IQ tests. So, when they're developed right before World War I as a military recruiting tool, you go into these urban communities, you show them different farm animals, and of course, they can't answer it. So, this becomes a myth that, you know, urban people are less intelligent than than rural people. I know you're up against a hard deadline. This has been interesting. So, first of all, thank you very much for joining us. But do you have any . . . if anybody wants to find out more or get in contact with you, how can they go ahead and do that?
• 49:47
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: Adrianne - Yeah, I mean our website is Altum - A-L-T-U-M-dash-insight.com [altum-insight.com].
• 49:55
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: And at this point one of the questions that Crystal asked early on was what is it that we hope to get out of this? And truly, I think the important part about what we hope to do is just simply impact. That we know that this is a tool that gets us closer to voters and brings voter sentiments closer to influencing politics and policy. And politics is always about power. Who has it? Who wants it? How we're going to go about getting it. And over time, somehow the ability to manipulate voters by talking at them has shaped politics in a way that's removed voters from being central to that power structure. And the nice thing about the the Preamble is that we don't have to guess what our forefathers meant about who should hold power in this country. It is the people. And so anything that we can do to restore power and voice to people is something that we should be doing. And we believe that this kind of research does that. It's integral to all of us on all sides in everything we do. Crystal, you saying that both parties should be strong. That's it's everybody's best interest because this is the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is that we have a different idea, a philosophy about how we should run the government. We all believe that the dem . . . that our democracy should and, and this republic, should be well-run and it should be providing answers to the way that we live our lives. It should be it should be a tool and a resource to make our lives better. And until we get back to putting that power structure with with voters, um we're going to continue to just be at a race to the bottom, which I could go on and on and on about. I appreciate that you all are willing to have a Democrat, you know, talk about crazy things on your show. I think that we need to have more of these dialogues or people on who just have a different idea about how to run the government can come together just to say we need to all be doing a better job. Crystal - Yeah. Yeah. We're in a representative democracy. I think, you know, quality data leads to really appropriate representation. I don't think either side's getting really good representation. And I'd like for both sides to get to a place where both people feel like they're represented. We're less likely to go to war. We'll be more productive. Quality of life will go up. That's just good good common sense.
• 52:19
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: Scott - Well, again, Adrianne, thank you very much. It's been an interesting conversation and maybe in a couple months we want to follow up because that'd be interesting because you've , got some more stuff coming out on this. So, it might be interesting to follow it.
• 52:32
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: But until then, Adrianne Marsh with Altum Insights. I'm Scott Gavorsky.
• 52:38
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: see you around the . . .
• 52:38
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: Adrianne - Oh, thank you.
• 52:58
  sorts of things. So I guess my question in this: [music]