do you include a guarantee?

 

bias research - or just poor research?

I recently read a ‘paper’ on buyer behaviour and the impact of ai on that behaviour. One of the key questions was: ‘how often do you use ‘generative AI?’ Okay, hands up, how many of you can explain the difference between ai, generative ai and agentic ai? If you can, well done. If you can’t, how could you answer this question. 

Unless respondents had to define generative ai before answering - possible, but likely(?) - any findings drawn from the resulting data are deeply flawed. By deeply flawed, I mean useless. 

Unless, of course, the organisation doing the research is selling AI services and so might be biased in its conclusions.

saying from one of my old bosses

 ... 'Pay peanuts, get monkeys'.

ai fails

I think it’s safe to assume that these failures wouldn’t have happened if ai had not been used?

it's funny 'cos it's true ...

 Well, true-ish.

big brother* is watching ... or, why I don't do facebook

I needed to know how to repair something in my van. A google search took me to a video on facebook. As the video ended, up popped a message telling me that a friend of mine - 160 miles away - was at a night club. Not a secret. But still ...

*I mean the one from George Orwell's book '1984', not the TV show.

one for the x files?

So I'm watching a TV programme about canals [on a TV with an outside aerial]. The boat is going over a massive aqueduct in Wales, but I missed its name. 

So I opened google on my PC and typed in "aqueduct … " but before I could add 'Wales' the auto-prompt thingy puts in 'Wales'. 

I have searched for aqueducts around the UK a number of times ... but why did google know I was looking for that country? 

Spooky.

*Younger readers might need to look up "the X Files TV series" 😏

Note the date of this cartoon

 

wasted search ad money

The search was for a very specific type of  motorhome; the "Transit Duetto Autosleeper". In the result, the first two ads are for campervans - which are different to motorhomes - and none are for 'Transit', 'Duetto' or 'Autosleeper'.

So the search was refined, adding the make of the motorhome. "Ford Transit Duetto Autosleeper" produced the following  return ...

Yep, Ford have paid for an ad to be presented if any searcher used the words "Ford" and "Transit" - the ad being for a brand new Ford Transit van. Not a motorhome. And not one that was last produced in 2010 ie used not new.

Ho hum.

any colour so long as it isn't black*

I wanted some information on the wiring of my van, and so entered a relevant search into Google ... and got this ai-generated response.  Note the 'typically'. I know what vehicle wiring colours are typically, but my enquiry was for specific information. Ho hum.

* For younger readers: when Ford introduced its original Model T car, it was only available in black [it made production cheaper].

ad spend well spent?

 I have no idea what this is. The ad data suggests I'm not the only one 😏

a reminder

In the world of ai, the word ‘agents’ is a replacement for the word ‘bots’*.  And ‘bots’ is short for 'robots'. 

So when you read the word ‘agents’, think: robots.

*Kudos to the marketer who thought of the rebrand.

instructions included

Soooooo, I was reading a social media article on a subject that interested me ... but the writing seemed a little clunky therefore it was no surprise when at the end of the article I read  the following:

"Since you didn’t include specific instructions with this text I have gone ahead and rewritten it into a punchy scannable format based on our previous tasks. Would you like me to generate some alternative headlines for this story or perhaps condense it down even further?"

The lesson gained from this is that if you're going to use ai software to write your articles, you should really edit them before publishing them.

a perfect review request

It's also very classy ... which reflects the experience you get at the actual place.

a little local difficulty

So I was looking for something to do in Scarborough [Yorkshire, England], and this is what Google advised. The first four were fine ... the other 'local activities' weren't even on the same continent. Ho hum.