Synthetic

Senses

1. 1. Synthetic data

   Machine learning

   Generated by a model for use in place of, or alongside, collected data, as in model training.

   Source: NIST AI 600-1 (opens in a new tab)

2. 2. Synthetic media

   Generative AI

   Generated by an AI model as text, images, audio, video or other digital content.

   Source: NIST AI 600-1 (opens in a new tab)

3. 3. Synthetic personas and panels

   AI research

   Simulated by a language model prompted to answer from a specified perspective or set of perspectives.

   See Lenses

   Source: Whose Personae? (AIES) (opens in a new tab) Source: CleverX 2026 (opens in a new tab)

In plain language

Made by a computer to stand in for something real, such as records, pictures or people's answers.

In a sentence

• We used synthetic data to exercise the importer before any customer records were available.
• The synthetic panel suggested questions for interviews with actual customers.

Examples written for this glossary

Usage note

The word names how something was made, not whether it is good or real. Ask: synthetic in which sense? The emerging phrase synthetic governance has no settled meaning; the observations below record uses, not a shared standard.

• Synthetic governance

  Opinion

  An opinion source presents an author's interpretation or argument. Grundvig's essay uses the phrase for rules carried out and enforced by software and data systems rather than by officials.

  Source: Grundvig 2025 (opens in a new tab)

• Synthetic governance

  Research

  A research publication reports a question, method and findings. Dixon's synthetic governance laboratory uses controlled simulations to compare policies for delegating decisions to AI.

  Source: Dixon 2026 (opens in a new tab)

• Synthetic governance

  Promotional website

  A promotional website describes a product or organization to attract users. Syntheticgovernance.com uses the phrase to promote automated compliance and machine-executable rules; the label does not verify its claims.

  Source: Syntheticgovernance.com (opens in a new tab)

Why it matters

Check what the generated material represents before treating its results as evidence about people, events or conditions outside the test.

See also

• Lenses

  Review perspectives that Orbyt requires an agent seat to apply to its draft, drawn chiefly from named people's published work.