Andy Hall

Andy Hall, a Stanford political scientist who used Claude and Claude Code to replicate and extend a vote-by-mail study. He recounts prompting strategies, how Claude mostly reproduced results, where automated code stumbled, the audit process that caught data and legal-timing errors, and wider implications for research speed, oversight, and how AI might reshape empirical social science.

Andy Hall, a Stanford political scientist who used AI tools like Claude Code to extend and audit a vote-by-mail study. He describes using agents to plan and run modular replications, where they shine at data collection and coding but sometimes miscoded or missed cases. He explores best practices, risks of overconfident AI reviewers, dynamic papers that reveal fragility, and what massively faster research could enable.