The Interactually Blog

ChatGPT Couldn't Give Me the Name of a Movie About a One-Armed Baseball Player or: Why Using Chatbots for Medical Diagnosis is 'Concerning'

Today, The Washington Post published an article titled "ChatGPT is little help for doctors in diagnosing diseases, study finds."

Yesterday, ChatGPT couldn't give me the name of a movie about a one-armed baseball player.

The fact that it couldn't give me the correct answer wasn't concerning, but the frequency in which it gave incorrect answers, the absolute confidence in which they did so, and the fabricated synopses for the movies they gave, was. While my example might be a little ridiculous, the WaPo article was enough for my eyes to pop out a little, considering here at Interactually, we only trust AI to perform some limited digital marketing tasks, where the stakes are quite a bit lower than medical diagnoses.

David Veldt - News - 11/19/2024

Marketing Teams Expected to do More with Less in 2024

According to a recent CMO survey by Gartner, marketing budgets fell to just 7.7% of overall company revenue in 2024. Spending on labor and agencies dropped, while spending on paid media jumped. In other words, companies are expecting their marketing departments to do more with less, and increasingly throwing money at outputs rather than people to manage them, hoping that AI can come to the rescue to make up the gaps in productivity and ROI.

It's easy to jump to conclusions from this. My high-level, obviously biased reaction is that this trend leads toward less strategy, lower conversion rates and effectiveness, and potential disaster. Case in point: Look at how many companies who have made generative AI the core component of their SEO strategy have been hit hard; many after seeing initial success.

David Veldt - News - 10/25/2024

Can We Include Prospective Patient Names in Email Subject Lines?

Last winter, I came across the following question (paraphrased):

"I provide a lead gen service and work with a doctor who has requested we include prospective patient's names in the email subject lines of our leads. As all of our forms go through a vault, we require our clients to log into the CRM to get the information. The doctor doesn't care and I told him he would need to sign something taking full responsibility."

I answered:

Wow, HIPAA violations galore on this. First of all, don't think about it as specifically as email subject lines, it's much more high level than that. To summarize the biggest points, YOU shouldn't be seeing their names at all (sort of hard to avoid when you're the one managing the emails), and marketing emails don't fall under any of the permitted uses of PHI (personal health information).

David Veldt - Asked & Answered - 08/21/2024

It's Coming. Are You Ready?

Since we've been dealing with the dumpster fire that has been the Universal Analytics -> GA4 migration for months now, and with a couple months to go, this video is spot on.

David Veldt - Analytics - 05/02/2023

Notre-Dame Cathedral is On Fire. Here's how Google is Responding in Real-Time.

A terrible tragedy is unfolding as I write this. Notre-Dame de Paris is on fire and at the time of this writing, the iconic spire has just collapsed in the blaze. I haven't heard any news regarding loss of life, so hopefully everyone is safe. It is already apparent, however, that the loss of history and artifacts in this building will be significant, if not total.

David Veldt - Uncategorized - 04/15/2019

What the Repeal of Net Neutrality Means for Digital Marketing

A year ago, a conservative family member asked me who I voted for, and I'm 95% certain they asked even though they knew the answer. After I replied they said, "I thought you'd be for Trump, being a business owner and all." Ethics and potential constitutional crises aside - which are some major things to set aside, but there's a lot going on right now - I explained that there was no greater threat to my business than the Trump administration.

In addition to demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to the Internet, President Trump said nearly a year before his election:

...maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way. Somebody will say, ‘Oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.,

David Veldt - News - 11/22/2017

The EU's Clever Workaround for that Pesky "Freedom of Expression" Thing

On Tuesday, the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of Mario Costeja Gonzalez (pictured above) of Spain in his suit against Google, aimed at getting them to remove pages related to Gonzalez's 1998 debt troubles that he argued are now irrelevant. Europe's top court ultimately decided that people have "the right to be forgotten."

Here's what's wrong with that.

David Veldt - News / Reputation Management / SEO - 05/15/2014

"WTF Is A Session?" Google Analytics Updates Their Terminology

If you have accessed Google Analytics to view your website's metrics at all in the past day, you may have noticed something a little odd. Upon logging in and seeing your default Audience Overview report, where you once saw "Visits" and "Visitors," you now see "Sessions" and "Users."

David Veldt - Analytics / UX - 04/18/2014

A Spam SEO Email Dissected

If your email address is included in a single mailto: link or on the receiving end of any contact form, there's a high probability that you've received an email like the one shown below. Everyone receives them. I receive them and my site openly says I offer SEO services. Google has even received them. The thing that really irks me, however, is that these people are peddling misinformation and horribly-out-of-date information.

Most professionals in the SEO community know this these emails are junk, and that practically everything they contain is bullshit, but for the uninitiated, it may be difficult to detect.

David Veldt - SEO - 04/11/2014

Google Is A Gossip Queen

Oh, Google. I know you mean well, but sometimes you just try too hard and come across like a real Chatty Cathy. Even worse, a Chatty Cathy Know-It-All.

I've got your back, though. The semantic web is to blame. In your quest to gain a human-like understanding of queries and content, you've relied a little too much on the web of information that has been created by the general Internet population. This works well in theory, but you underestimated one thing: Our undying thirst for #juicy #gossip!

At the heart of the matter is Google's Knowledge Graph.

David Veldt - News / SEO / SERP FAIL - 04/03/2014

Practical Digital Marketing Advice (and Occasional Rants) from the Experts