Sunday Shuffle v. 10

"An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." - Mahatma Ghandi

Candidly, I struggled this week with what to write about amidst the worsening crisis in Israel and the Gaza Strip. As of yesterday, CBS reported a staggering death toll exceeding 3,000 on both sides, with the numbers continuing to rise daily. These tragic events have ignited global protests and strained the already taut fabric of social media to the brink of ripping apart.

Many of us (myself included) continue to grapple with a sense of 'generalized anxiety disorder' post-pandemic and in this current socio-economic climate. The quest for reliable, trustworthy information feels like we're navigating an endless maze of biases and mistruths. And when the giant tech platforms wax poetic about their 'trust and responsibility' to reassure us, evidence emerges that shows how flimsy their words and systems actually are.

Trust is a precious asset that every company needs to fiercely build and protect, and as marketers, we bear a big brunt of that responsibility. We've never had so many new tools at our fingertips to be "better, faster and cheaper" at doing our jobs. But in our quest for higher awareness and deeper engagement, we need to be careful in how we leverage these tools because we're all figuring it out as we go along. Even Google Insiders are openly debating the effectiveness and utility of Bard, OpenAI, etc. -- questioning whether the enormous resources going into its development are even worth it.

“The biggest challenge I’m still thinking of: what are LLMs truly useful for, in terms of helpfulness?” “Like really making a difference. TBD!” - Cathy Pearl, UX Lead for Bard

Let's Shuffle forth ...

Wave of Misinformation Floods Social Media

X (Twitter) came under big-time pressure last week after the EU filed a complaint that the social media platform was “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation” related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Despite the company's CEO, Linda Yaccarino, saying it “identified and removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts,” more users continue to flee the platform for alternative channels like Meta Threads. (CNBC ). The company is definitely walking a tightrope between free speech and disseminating harmful rhetoric and misinformation on its platform.

Social Media Consultant/Influencer, Matt Navarra, has been a prolific X user for 15 years, but made the decision this week to leave the platform (Geekout ):

Why It Matters:

In recent years, social media platforms like Facebook/Meta have gradually distanced themselves from sharing news after being repeatedly called to Capitol Hill to defend their missteps. The impact has been significant, with monthly traffic from Facebook to news sites falling nearly 80% .

Why You Should Care:

According to the Morning Consult, 50% of GenZs and 45% of millennials go to social media daily for news, so lessening access to news on these platforms ... and allowing harmful content on X changes the landscape for those of us who rely heavily on social for traffic.

“We’ve moved from social media to algorithmic media, and the information landscape is fundamentally different.” - Daniel Kreiss, Professor of Political Communications, UNC [Bloomberg]

OpenAI Quietly Changed its Core Values

OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) completely revised their company core values last week, with one particularly interesting change highlighted below. They added and placed "AGI Focus" in the top spot, which one could argue is a strategic imperative and not a core value. (Semafor )

Why It Matters: AGI, or Artificial Generalized Intelligence, is defined as the threshold by which AI systems surpass human capabilities for a majority of economically valuable tasks (in other words, they essentially do our jobs). It's what many experts are most concerned about, especially the Godfather of AI, who warned us about AGI on 60 Minutes last Sunday. The fact that they have made it their top priority and are "committed to building safe, beneficial AGI that will have a massive positive impact on humanity's future" is reassuring, but words can be cheap as we all know. (Semafor )

Bright Spots in AI >> Healthcare

Just to clarify, I'm not a Negative Nancy about AI! I'm actually quite optimistic about its potential to address some of our world's biggest challenges. Take healthcare, for example, where AI's ability to analyze massive amounts of data and make predictions has already had a profound impact:

• Harvard and Oxford researchers have developed a new AI tool?that can predict viral variants and ID the most dangerous ones. [More ]
• Neuroscience News reports that AI can predict schizophrenia by discerning subtle speech patterns. [More ]
• Twinn Health recently unveiled an AI platform designed to analyze MRI scans and predict diseases while still in their early stages. [More ]
• Google announced this week updates to its Vertex AI Search with new Healthcare and Life Sciences capabilities, allowing its healthcare partners to better predict patient outcomes and optimize medical treatments. [More ]

Quick Marketing Hits

• An analysis by this SEO expert found that AI-generated content was penalized more often by Google than the human-created content. [More ]
• Interesting piece in Forbes on "Relationship Capital as The Future of Successful B2B Go-to-Market Strategy" [More ]
• Here are 7 good reasons why better collaboration between marketing and customer experience is so critical. [More ]
• OpenView sits down with SEO expert, Eli Schwartz to decode the true state of Gen AI and how to future-proof your SEO strategy. [More ]

Latest Research Reports

If you want to dig in and geek out on some data, here are some recent reports I've personally found valuable:

• Nathan Benaich and his colleagues at Air Street Capital published one of the most comprehensive reports on AI I've seen. [State of AI 2023 ]
• The team at GBK Collective, including Wharton Professors Stefano Puntoni and Eric Bradlow , just published results of a large study on GenAI adoption in US corporates in partnership with Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities.

That's a wrap, marketeers. As you shuffle into the coming week, let's all pray for peace, love and understanding wherever there is war, hatred and distrust.

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." - Albert Einstein

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