{"id":500102,"date":"2026-03-28T13:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T13:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/500102\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T13:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T13:07:07","slug":"our-assumptions-are-broken-how-fraudulent-church-data-revealed-ais-threat-to-polling-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/500102\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Our assumptions are broken\u2019: how fraudulent church data revealed AI\u2019s threat to polling | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock<\/a>, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales<\/a> appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society.<\/p>\n

Based on data collected by a YouGov survey, it claimed church attendance was increasing in England and Wales. The findings drove headlines, and the narrative was established.<\/p>\n

There was just one problem \u2013 the survey turned out to be based on \u201cfraudulent\u201d data<\/a> and has been withdrawn. And academics and experts are warning that this episode should serve as a parable, not about a renaissance in religion, but of the false prophets of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

double quotation markThe AI agent can figure out what a researcher is trying to test and produce data that confirms the hypothesisSean Westwood<\/p>\n

Researchers have said online opt-in surveys are becoming increasingly infested with bogus data as respondents who are often paid for their participation use AI to fill in questionnaires at speed.<\/p>\n

These particular surveys are self-selecting research forms that can shape national discourse. But a major fault, experts say, is that they are susceptible to \u201csurvey farmers\u201d, and this vulnerability means the results should be treated with caution when trying to understand social trends.<\/p>\n

David Voas, a quantitative social scientist and emeritus professor at University College London said: \u201cThis sort of information, misinformation, is just very difficult to correct once it starts spreading. And the amount of effort required to correct it is an order of magnitude higher than the effort needed to disseminate it in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are finding our confidence in these sorts of polls undermined, and then it\u2019s very difficult to move back,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Voas said the problem was a general one, not just isolated to YouGov.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a growing problem because if you [as a participant] can work at scale, you can actually generate a reasonable amount of revenue, even in western terms, never mind global south terms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to a 2026 report<\/a>, YouGov uses a random sample method which means participants cannot choose which survey they want to complete. A YouGov spokesperson told the Guardian: \u201cWe select which surveys to send them, so there is no way of joining to influence the result of a piece of research.\u201d<\/p>\n

A broken survey model<\/p>\n

The growth of AI has exacerbated the problem. Sean Westwood, an associate professor in the department of government at Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, said: \u201cThe assumption with survey research \u2013 that someone gives coherent, logical answers, they\u2019re a real person \u2013 that assumption is now broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no evidence to suggestAI use was the source of the fraud in the church attendance numbers recorded by YouGov in 2024. However, Westwood said AI had the potential to influence online survey research. \u201cThe tools to do all of this are cheap, accessible and available right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said AI models posed an existential threat to our understanding of society. \u201cThe agent can be weaponised. A single sentence of instruction is enough to systematically bias its answers on political polls or geopolitical questions, while keeping its demographic profile intact so the manipulation is invisible to standard screening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven without explicit instructions to cheat, the agent can figure out what a researcher is trying to test and produce data that confirms the hypothesis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

double quotation markBogus respondents tend to respond in the affirmative, no matter what is askedCourtney Kennedy<\/p>\n

However, the rate at which AI is being used to complete these surveys is difficult to detect. \u201cWe don\u2019t know the precise scope, and that\u2019s part of the problem,\u201d said Westwood.<\/p>\n

And, he added, the rapid transformation in AI technology makes it difficult to combat its potential influence. \u201cA researcher might design a clever new trap that catches today\u2019s models, but model development moves so fast that the fix is likely obsolete within months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The youth influence<\/p>\n

The report by the Bible Society claimed that church attendance was increasing at the highest rate among young people in England and Wales. Courtney Kennedy, the vice-president of methods and innovation at Pew Research Center, said opt-in estimates for people under the age of 30 tend to contain high levels of error and are more likely to stem from \u201cclick farms\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, people who are highly skilled using the internet and concealing their identity skew younger,\u201d said Kennedy. \u201cBogus cases want to qualify for as many surveys as possible. It is well known in the industry that young adults are hard to reach for surveys. So from this standpoint, it is advantageous to self-present as young because surveys tend to need such respondents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy added: \u201cBogus respondents tend to respond in the affirmative, no matter what is asked. This is called positivity bias, which inflates the estimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voas said the problem with the Bible Society report was not only the fraudulent respondents but the failure to critically compare the findings of the YouGov survey with other available research by the churches themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were doing serious scholarly research, you would need to review the literature and see what other evidence was out there,\u201d said Voas.<\/p>\n

A YouGov spokesperson said: \u201cThe rise of organised survey farms, bots, and now AI-assisted responses makes detection a vital, continuous and constantly evolving discipline. YouGov uses identity checks, device fingerprinting, multi source geolocation, real-time threat scoring, and payout oversight so bad actors do not slip through the net.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone joins the YouGov panel we link the information they supply with every data point we can observe about their device, location and behaviour. From this we decide who to invite, who to verify and, if necessary, who to remove.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-500102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}