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Imagine having a time machine for decision-making— a way to fast-forward through the impact of major policy decisions—like tax changes, pension reforms, or innovation support—without triggering real-world consequences. That’s what a digital twin makes possible: a living, data-driven replica of society that evolves with real conditions and reveals the impact of “what if” scenarios in real time, helping leaders see consequences before they unfold.

We are turning that vision into reality by building the world’s first detailed nation-scale digital twin of Slovakia in partnership with the <a href="https://uesa.sav.sk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV)</a> and the <a href="https://www.dekk.institute/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">DEKK Institute</a>.

The model will contain a virtual citizen for every one of Slovakia’s 5.5 million residents, making the country a European pioneer in AI-driven policy innovation. The twin begins with a nationwide survey that captures economic status, political attitudes, moral values and everyday habits. Each response seeds a software “agent” that goes to work, shops, socializes and changes opinions much like its real-world counterpart. Those agents interact inside a multi-agent AI environment, creating a living mirror of society that evolves hour by hour.

What makes the model more than a data dump or GPT agent is its theory-driven core. Built on advanced theories of cross-cultural psychosocial dynamics, CulturePulse’s digital twins reveal not just how people behave, but why they form alliances—or come into conflict—across different contexts. That depth lets analysts stress-test reforms, media narratives or crisis responses and spot fracture points before they appear on the evening news.

<h1>What the twin can do</h1> <ul><li>Policy Lab: Design a new family-benefits package, simulate how real people will react, fine-tune the details that spark resistance, and launch with confidence and greater public backing.</li></ul> <ul><li>Crisis rehearsal: Model how misinformation might ripple through networks after a natural disaster, then pre-position resources where they will matter most.</li></ul> <ul><li>Long-term forecasting: Explore demographic ageing, climate migrations or automation shocks decades ahead and design buffers while there is still time.</li></ul>

“The practical uses of this model are incredibly broad. A digital twin lets us simulate how society will react to specific measures—such as tax increases, pension-system reforms or changes in education—without risking real-world consequences. It’s a huge leap forward for evidence-based policymaking,”

<h1 class="ql-align-justify">Trust and transparency at the core</h1> Building such power demands rigorous safeguards. Every personal identifier is stripped at source, GDPR compliance is audited at each step, and outputs are continually benchmarked against real-world statistics to prevent bias or drift. Independent reviewers will scrutinise the system, ensuring the mirror remains truthful rather than distorted.

<h1 class="ql-align-justify">A roadmap for the journey ahead</h1> The phased rollout is already under way. After the current data-collection and agent-design workshops, the team will deliver a research-grade prototype that invites select government, business and academic partners into a sandbox to rehearse their own futures. From there, the platform can scale: regional twins for neighbouring countries, sector-specific models for energy, healthcare or supply chains, and even continent-level simulations for EU-wide policymaking.

“What makes this project exceptional is the way it fuses cutting-edge social theories with state-of-the-art tech. We’re creating a tool that lets us observe society’s dynamics in real time—without interfering in them,”

<h1 class="ql-align-justify">Why Slovakia, why CulturePulse?</h1><h3 class="ql-align-justify"> </h3>Slovakia blends centuries-old heritage with an energetic innovation scene and a spectrum of social voices—an ideal sandbox for pioneering a nation-scale digital twin. CulturePulse brings a proven track record of multi-lingual, theory-driven AI that has already forecast conflict risks from <a href="https://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol36/iss1/6/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Northern Ireland</a> to the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/culturepulse-ai-israeli-palestinian-crisis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Middle East.</a> By combining that expertise with SAV’s deep social-science credentials and DEKK’s public-policy insight, the consortium fuses state-of-the-art technology with on-the-ground context.

“Simulating society lets us see what might happen—before it happens. A predictive model like this is priceless for anyone designing public policy,”

<h1>Do you want to know more?</h1>Get in touch at hello@culturepulse.ai or visit <a href="http://culturepulse.ai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">culturepulse.ai</a>—because when you can see the future in a simulation, you can shape it in the real world.

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Simulating Society: Inside the World’s First Psychologically Accurate Digital Twin of a Nation

As 2023 began, CulturePulse was poised at an exciting juncture. Our initial focus was on marketing, driven by the understanding that much of the world's division is exacerbated by the suggestion algorithms of social media. These algorithms often amplify the worst aspects of human interaction for higher engagement. CulturePulse, with its advanced AI that comprehends cultural nuances and emotional intelligence, aimed to help brands connect more authentically, bypassing the manipulative tendencies of these algorithms.

In the early months, our efforts were centered around refining our AI technologies to enhance marketing strategies. We believed that by understanding and integrating cultural sensitivities and emotional contexts, brands could engage with audiences more meaningfully, promo=ting unity rather than division. However, as the year progressed, we observed a growing global need for social cohesion and conflict resolution. Recognizing our unique position, CulturePulse made a strategic pivot. Our mission, from the outset, was to harness AI for greater understanding and connection between people. The escalating global conflicts and social fragmentation underscored the need for this mission now more than ever. Embracing this shift, we redirected our resources and focus towards peacebuilding and policy-making, leveraging our AI to address these critical global challenges.

The latter part of 2023 saw CulturePulse making significant strides in this new direction. We collaborated with renowned institutions, including researchers at the University of Cambridge and the United Nations, to apply our technology in some of the world's most complex conflict zones, such as Northern Ireland, South Sudan, the Balkans, Ukraine, and Palestine. This led us to on the ground work, where our co-founders were able to experience first hand the realities of the West Bank, the Balkans, and Northern Ireland, with all their beauty and hope, despite what violence there may be. Our AI systems provided valuable insights into cultural and moral dynamics, highlighting common values that could serve as a basis for dialogue and understanding in these divided regions. <img src="https://culturepulse-web.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/2023_in_Review_2cd4df5927.png" alt="2023_in_Review.png">

As we look to 2024, CulturePulse is energized by ambitious goals. We plan to expand our ARES conflict tracking platform, aiming to cover over 100 nations. We are well on our way to having full coverage of the EU and NATO by Q2 2024. This platform will offer scientifically-backed insights into the drivers of peace and cooperation, enabling more effective conflict mitigation strategies on a global scale. Our vision for 2024 is not just to contribute to resolving current conflicts but to proactively shape a world where understanding and collaboration preempt division and strife.

At CulturePulse, we believe that our work transcends traditional business objectives. We are committed to leveraging our advanced AI not just for commercial success but as a tool for global betterment. Our goal is to reshape how societies engage with and resolve conflicts both online and offline, big and small, fostering a world that prioritizes understanding and peace over division and discord.

Overall, 2023 has been a year of growth, adaptation, and realignment for us. We started the year focusing on marketing but pivoted to peacebuilding and policy-making as we recognized the urgent global need for these applications of our AI technology. Looking forward, we are committed to expanding our influence and impact, driven by the belief that our AI can play a pivotal role in creating a more harmonious and understanding world.

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CulturePulse: 2023 in Review

Spoiler: sentiment analysis is not enough to confidently understand your audience’s behavior. And in the ever-evolving world we live in, deep understanding is critical for improving everything from engagement to conversion. Enter CulturePulse—a tool that takes you beyond mere sentiment and opens up a world of dimensions that paint a crystal-clear picture of your community. In this blog, we'll introduce you to the concept of dimensions, why they’re the key to ensuring your content connects, and how to use them. <h2>Problem: People Are More Than Positive, Negative or Neutral Emotions</h2>Though handy and employed by the likes of Microsoft, Google, and IBM, sentiment analysis falls well short of unraveling the intricate tapestry of beliefs and motivations that truly move people to action. We’re complex animals it turns out! Not to mention, sentiment analysis hinges on historical data (read: old), meaning it fails to keep up with rapidly changing behaviors and trends. Not ideal for making decisions. <h2>Solution: Understand the Beliefs that Drive Behavior</h2>Belief systems, on the other hand, change far less frequently, offering more reliable and up-to-the-minute analysis of your audience. Think about it: how often do your core beliefs really shift? With CulturePulse, you get a richer, deeper dive into what makes your community unique and what motivates their actions. Say goodbye to superficial insights and hello to a more profound understanding of your audience. Analysis across 93 dimensions allows our algorithm to decode beliefs and predict behavior with a &gt;95% correlation to real-world outcomes. In other words, it’s pretty dang accurate. <h2>Hold On, What’s a Dimension?</h2>Think of it as a specific, measurable characteristic that provides profound insights into the traits and preferences that spur your audience into action. Dimensions are the building blocks of a comprehensive understanding of your community.<h3> </h3><h3>The More Dimensions, the Clearer the Picture</h3>93 vs 1. That’s what you’re looking at with sentiment analysis vs. nearly 100 dimensions that cover a wide expanse of human behavior and experience. The dimensions fall into more than a dozen categories; let's take a closer look at a few of them:<h4> </h4><h4>Psychological Certainty</h4>The degree of confidence and conviction your audience has and how easy or difficult it is to persuade them. By understanding psychological certainty, you can tailor your messaging to either reinforce existing beliefs or gently nudge your community toward new perspectives. <h4>Personality</h4>Insights into how your audience scores on each of the <a href="https://www.testgorilla.com/blog/how-to-interpret-the-results-of-a-big-5-ocean-assessment/?utm_term=&amp;utm_campaign=Performance+Max+%7C+Premium+Old&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;hsa_acc=4932434860&amp;hsa_cam=14324002500&amp;hsa_grp=&amp;hsa_ad=&amp;hsa_src=x&amp;hsa_tgt=&amp;hsa_kw=&amp;hsa_mt=&amp;hsa_net=adwords&amp;hsa_ver=3&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjwj5mpBhDJARIsAOVjBdpT_mXVMxB8NVjs_37Xfg9ENLzsxIdKPUxRPNa46PCYtZmQ9rkaRG0aAoioEALw_wcB" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent;">Big Five personality traits</a>—Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN). Together, these traits paint a clearer picture of what motivates someone, so tailoring your messaging to match specific personality traits can significantly improve its resonance. ﻿<img src="https://culturepulse-web.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Suggestions_Image_e59770d52b.png" alt="Suggestions Image.png" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;"> <h4>Moral Concerns</h4>Signals that define an audience's political position, particularly concerning authority, fairness, harm, ingroup loyalty, purity, and liberty. Understanding your audience's moral concerns can help you craft messages that align with their values and beliefs, creating a stronger connection and more robust engagement. ﻿This is just a tiny glimpse of the tools CulturePulse equips you with to decode your audience's beliefs and motivations, helping you create messages that truly resonate. <h3>How to use dimension analysis in the real world</h3>Data and dimensions are great but how do you transform them into actions that help activate and inspire more of your community? For starters, with the<a href="https://culturepulse.ai/blog/allow-users-to-do-more-with-api-integrations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </a><a href="https://culturepulse.ai/blog/allow-users-to-do-more-with-api-integrations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">CulturePulse API</a>, you can plug in your audience data and interact with any dimension individually, which means highly specialized analysis of the exact traits that push the right buttons with your community.Here’s what it looks like in practice:<ul><li>Tailor content to specific personality traits</li><li>Speak to cultural and political alignment</li><li>Enhance persuasion and certainty</li><li>Craft moral and ethical messages</li><li>Refine gender-specific marketing</li><li>Foster inclusive social dynamics</li><li>Connect with personal values</li></ul>The list goes on. <h2>Understand your audience on a deeper level</h2>If the goal is to connect, it’s time to move past mere sentiment.Why only work with positive, negative, and neutral when you can tap into the whole inner world of your community with CulturePulse? Contact our sales team at hello@culturepulse.ai to learn more about enhancing your software with CulturePulse integration today.

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Beyond Sentiment: How CulturePulse Reshapes Audience Insights

17 sites were trading my information actively. I don’t get a penny for this information…but these companies are making billions.

Social media platforms have long made their living turning their users into products for advertisers and businesses to profit from; collecting and selling data has been business as usual for so long that it almost feels like an immutable truth. But it doesn’t have to be. As the AI revolution takes shape and continues to weave its way into our daily lives, the questions around data ethics become increasingly imperative. Why? Because data – and lots of it – is the backbone of all the emerging generative AI systems. We sat down with our CEO, Justin Lane, to dive into data ethics, the trouble with big data, and the importance of building AI tools that address the issues.

<h2>Defining Data Ethics</h2>The ethical use of data, no? Sure, but what does that mean in practice? To get to the heart of it, we need to get more specific. Data ethics revolves around “not violating the trust and rights of other people in terms of how you're using data.”This includes:<ul><li>Not using data for purposes that the individual wouldn’t</li><li>Not using data for things that could potentially harm somebody else</li><li>Not using data to create an AI system that is solely tuned to doing something bad</li></ul>As simple as it seems, data is a billion-dollar business where right and wrong get murky quickly.

<h2>The Folly of Big Data</h2>“The fact is sometimes you don't need bigger data; you just need better algorithms.” Marketers have long relied on demographics like race, religion, sex, age, familial status, nationality, etc. to segment people. The case of Meta’s discriminatory housing ads is a textbook example of coupling those old-school marketing tactics with an almost blind overreliance on big data. As the<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-groundbreaking-settlement-agreement-meta-platforms-formerly-known" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </a><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-groundbreaking-settlement-agreement-meta-platforms-formerly-known" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">Department of Justice</a> noted, “the complaint alleges that Meta uses algorithms in determining which Facebook users receive housing ads, and that those algorithms rely, in part, on characteristics protected under the Fair Housing Act.” The thing is, it’s not actually the demographics that lead to and motivate buying decisions – it’s beliefs.

“Why would you want to segment that and just say, I'm not even going to talk to these people? When really you want to talk to everyone who would be interested. That's what's going to make your marketing most effective.”

<h2>New-School, Belief Based Marketing</h2>&nbsp;“You're not making products for a demographic; you're making products for people who need them and the demographics were just proxies for those people. With CulturePulse, we’re able to quantify people's beliefs, their values and the things that they're interested in.” If a person believes they should live a healthy lifestyle, for example, you should be able to focus your advertising of vitamins, supplements, exercise regimens, books, podcasts and whatnot to them specifically because they’re health conscious. Something that has nothing to do with their race, their income demographic, etc. – the belief transcends.“You can be more ethical by not incorporating that data.” <h2>Corporate Responsibility: The Status Quo vs. The People</h2>With great power comes great responsibility as they say. However, legacy companies like Meta, Twitter, etc., have made their billions trading our personal data. Remember, even if you’ve deleted your profile, in many cases they keep your data. “Now that there's this idea in mind of needing to pay people for their data, I think that that's why you're seeing a lot of activation in the legal space and you're going to see more lawsuits coming against the big guys around AI and data ethics in particular.” This dovetails with the Constitution and the 4th amendment – see what we mean about murky. “If we view our data as our property and therefore your security, then it means that someone can't take the data you produce and just sell it without your consent or your knowledge. Or you're being paid for it so you can agree to say a minuscule percent of Facebook’s profit.” And it’s not just about compensating individuals for the trillions of data points they’ve fed these companies over the years; AI models are being trained on the same data.<h2> </h2><h2>Corporation-on-Corporation Crime</h2>“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">Reddit Wants to Get Paid for Helping to Teach Big A.I. Systems</a>”, reads a recent headline from the New York Times. Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and more have been freely crawling and scraping Reddit data to build out their AI tools, creating massive value for themselves in the process without delivering any value back to Reddit – or the users who provided the data. [Note: CulturePulse pays Reddit for this same data.] Of course, users signed away their rights in the never-read terms of service, a classic case of what’s ethical and what’s legal not being quite aligned. <h2>What’s Next?</h2>That’s the big question that CulturePulse will be working towards answering as AI evolves. As Justin points out, “a lot of what I see in the startup community is people wanting to change things. They want to do it. They’re seeking ways to be more innovative in terms of their data ethics and more broadly ethical in terms of their innovations.” It’s less David vs. Goliath and more David feeding Goliath. Maybe the bigger question is, how much longer can that last? Justin spoke on setting ethical standards at the previous Reflect Festival; check out his thoughts:

Simulating Society: Inside the World’s First Psychologically Accurate Digital Twin of a Nation

CulturePulse: 2023 in Review

Beyond Sentiment: How CulturePulse Reshapes Audience Insights

David vs. Goliath – Data Ethics and AI

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