INBOX INSIGHTS, March 22, 2023: Fact-Checking AI, Social Media at Conferences

INBOX INSIGHTS: Fact-Checking AI, Social Media at Conferences (3/22) :: View in browser

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How Do I Know if My AI Information Is Correct?

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about all the advances in AI over recent months. ChatGPT is dominating the conversation but they aren’t the only game in town. For the purposes of this newsletter, thought, we’ll pick on ChatGPT – just a little.

Reminder, tools like ChatGPT have a lot of great potential and we’re already seeing the disruption of how we work. I’m a big fan of these tools and I think that they will help us refocus on really important work, while helping to automate more of the repetitive pieces. Keep in mind that this is not a post hating on ChatGPT. This is a remind to you, the end user, to use your noodle.

Since it has become available, the majority of users look at ChatGPT as a way to research and write content. Ever the skeptic, my first question is, “How do you know if the information is correct?”

The short answer is that you don’t. Just like looking up something on the internet, taking the results at face value can be dangerous. Unless you’re using GPT-4 through the Bing interface, it otherwise doesn’t cite its source of information.

Chris told me that he was using ChatGPT to help him write code. I asked him how he knew if the code the system was writing was correct. He said that he had to go back through it and make sure it was what he intended. I could ask ChatGPT to write code too. But because I’m not a developer I would have no idea if it was correct and if I take it at face value it could be a risk to my project and my business.

When you start extending that scenario into how quickly ChatGPT can create content, the risks of misinformation start to get even higher. Some companies are using these systems to churn out thousands of pieces of content without doing a thorough fact check of each piece.

Here’s a simple example. We asked ChatGPT: What do you know about Katie Robbert?

This is what it told us.

There is a person named Katie Robbert who is the CEO of Trust Insights, a marketing analytics and data consulting company. She is also a professor at Rutgers University and has been a keynote speaker at various conferences on topics related to marketing, analytics, and data science. Additionally, she co-hosts the podcast “Punch Out With Katie and Kerry” where she and her co-host discuss various topics related to marketing, business, and technology.

If you don’t know me that well, you’d think this was a reasonable response. Well, friend, the devil is in the details. This is about 90% correct. However, I do not at this time, have any affiliation with Rutgers University. (I am however open to the possibility).

The point is, if you don’t read carefully or aren’t a subject matter expert you could miss the incorrect information.

When we recorded our podcast, In-Ear Insights, the other day, we were walking through developing prompts. We decided to use “SEO in 2023” as the topic. We built the prompt, ran the query, and ChatGPT gave us a first draft of tactics that will be relevant for SEO in 2023. It said things like, video optimization and voice search.

To me, this was helpful advice. However, when Chris read it, he said that the advice was about five years out of date. The challenge is that I’m not a subject matter expert in SEO so I would have read this draft and thought it was good enough.

The examples I’m giving are pretty low risk. What happens when you start asking for content that involves medical advice or other high risk topics? There has to be a way to know if the information is correct, right?

Right.

Do your homework. Before you ask a tool like ChatGPT to write a post or develop code for you, make sure you know all the facts. In the example above where we ask the system to write a post on SEO in 2023, my first mistake was not being up to date on the latest SEO tactics. The way to get around the misinformation is to include the relevant facts in your prompt before asking the system to write for you. You can be as specific as you need to be. ChatGPT (on its own) isn’t a search engine, you shouldn’t be using it as one. Use it to rewrite your content, to summarize notes, to assist you, the expert.

This is the old, “Will AI take my job?” question. In this instance, if you’re a subject matter expert, the answer is no. If you know how to research a topic, the answer is no. If you know how to fact check, the answer is no. Humans need to, and continue to be, in charge. Not the other way around.

Are you using ChatGPT? Reply to this email or come tell me about your experience in our free Slack Community, Analytics for Marketers.

– Katie Robbert, CEO

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In this week’s In-Ear Insights, Katie and Chris talk through how to improve your prompt engineering for large language models like ChatGPT, GPT-4, and other services through the use of the software development lifecycle. Learn how to apply the SDLC to your individual work with AI tools, and why it’s so important.

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Data Diaries: Interesting Data We Found

In this week’s Data Diaries, we noticed something recently as we were doing our network maps for Social Media Marketing World. While we couldn’t put our finger on it exactly, it felt like there was less public social media activity than previously. However, a hunch does not make an analysis, so we did what we always do: pulled the data.

In this exploration, we extracted the public Twitter data using the appropriate hashtags for 6 major events since 2016:

  • Content Marketing World
  • Social Media Marketing World
  • INBOUND
  • MarketingProfs B2B Forum
  • Dreamforce
  • Mobile World Congress

What did we find?

Chart of conference tweets

What we see is clear evidence that across the board, all conferences and events took the expected hit during the peak years of the pandemic; however, content creation on Twitter for events has been steadily dropping well before the pandemic. Things are slowly building back; 2022 was a rebuilding year.

However, for many events, the overall trend is clear on Twitter: decreased public social media content creation.

Now, before we jump to conclusions, there are a variety of reasons this could be the case, none of which the data exposes:

  1. Yes, it’s possible conferences are getting less engaging.
  2. It’s equally possible conferences are getting more engaging and attendees are getting more value from being at the event, which means less time on social media during the event.
  3. It’s possible that other social networks have become more important to attendees such as Instagram, Tiktok, etc. and conference content postings have moved to those networks.
  4. It’s possible that private social media communities and conference apps have improved to the point where conversations on public social media have moved into private, walled gardens.
  5. It’s possible that people in general are less enamored of social media at events and are simply choosing not to post content as much.

So what? What are the key takeaways here? If you’re a conference organizer, recognize that social media engagement has taken a hit year after year for most events on Twitter. If you’re using social media as a proof point of your event’s popularity, that tactic may be past its prime. If you’re a conference attendee, chances are organizers are still trying to get social media attention to their event and with less content being created at events, the chance for you to stand out and be noticed is greater.

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