Beyond WEIRD: Can synthetic survey participants substitute for humans in global policy research?

Researchers are testing the feasibility of using the artificial intelligence tools known as large language models to create synthetic research participants—artificial entities that respond to surveys as real humans would. Thus far, this research has largely not been designed to examine whether synthetic participants could mimic human answers to policy-relevant surveys or reflect the views of people from non-WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) nations. Addressing these gaps in one study, we have compared human and synthetic participants’ responses to policy-relevant survey questions in three domains: sustainability, financial literacy, and female participation in the labor force. Participants were drawn from the United States as well as two non-WEIRD nations that have not previously been included in studies of synthetic respondents: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. We found that for all three nations, the synthetic participants created by GPT-4, a form of large language model, on average produced responses reasonably similar to those of their human counterparts. Nevertheless, we observed some differences between the American and non-WEIRD participants: For the latter, the correlations between human and synthetic responses to the full set of survey questions tended to be weaker. In addition, although we found a common tendency in all three countries for synthetic participants to show more positive and less negative bias (that is, to be more progressive and financially literate relative to their human counterparts), this trend was less pronounced for the non-WEIRD participants. We discuss the main policy implications of our findings and offer practical recommendations for improving the use of synthetic participants in research.