“A school in Florida was forced into shutdown after an AI-based weapon detection system mistakenly triggered an entire campus lockdown by mistaking a clarinet for a firearm.”
The software was ZeroEyes, and it allows for human review for protection against a false positive. But in this case (like the Maryland chip case) the humans failed to discern that the “gun” wasn’t a gun.
While this may be a failure of AI weapons detection software, it is also a failure of the human reviewers.
Have you ever seen that popular movie where the silent loner student suddenly stands up in the school cafeteria and threatens his classmates with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos?
“After football practice Monday night, Taki Allen chatted with friends outside Kenwood High School while munching on Cool Ranch Doritos. When he finished his snack he put the bag in his pocket. Minutes later, several police officers pulled up, pointed their guns at him and yelled for him to get on the ground, he said.”
So why did Taki (I’ll get to his name later) receive police attention?
“The false alarm was triggered by Baltimore County Public Schools’ AI-powered gun-detection system, Omnilert.”
Yes, it…um…appears that the AI-powered system thought the Doritos bag was a gun.
“In this case, Omnilert’s monitoring team reviewed an image of “what appeared to be a firearm” on the person at Kenwood Monday night, said Blake Mitchell, a spokesperson for Omnilert.
“”Because the image closely resembled a gun being held, it was verified and forwarded to the Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) safety team within seconds for their assessment and decision-making,” he wrote in an email.”
Although not explicitly stated, it appears that the image was sent for human review…and the human thought it was a gun also.
So how can a Cool Ranch Doritos bag look like a gun? Let’s see the picture.
“Mitchell [noted] that their privacy policy prevents them from sharing the image.”
Bredemarket is not a B2C business, and 99% of Bredemarket’s business is already conducted online. But even I need to remind myself that my prospects and clients may not be in an office—not even a home office—when they do business with me.
While my American friends are ignoring the Bredemarket blog today to focus on personal matters, I can have a little blogging fun. Well, until they all come back to work Monday.
Did you hear about the secret recording about Campbell’s Soup?
“I don’t want to eat a…piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer, do you?”
Well, soup is good food, and Martin Bally is now unemployed.
“After a review, we believe the voice on the recording is in fact Martin Bally. The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused. This behavior does not reflect our values and the culture of our company, and we will not tolerate that kind of language under any circumstances. As of November 25, Mr. Bally is no longer employed by the company.“
In 1883, Benz again found financial helpers and set up Benz & Co. Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik. The new company did a splendid business and gave Benz the financial security he needed to expedite the development of a motor car conceived as a unit. For his newly developed Benz Patent Motor Car, in 1886 he was granted patent No. 37 435 – the birth certificate of the automobile.
The awkwardly-named company (well, maybe not so awkwardly named to Germans) occupied Benz’s time until 1903, when he restricted himself to the Supervisory Board. He subsequently started another firm, Carl Benz Söhne, in 1906 and retired from that firm in 1912.
By the time he passed away in 1929, Carl Benz lived to see the merger of Daimler Motorengesellschaft and Benz & Cie. (the 1899 rename of Benz & Co. Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik) to form Daimler-Benz AG. The cars produced by the merged company were called “Mercedes-Benz.” Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
“The BIC 4-Color Pen was ingeniously crafted to allow the user to switch between ink colors without the need to swap pens. This was made possible due to a singular mechanism, employing precision springs, that helped in selecting the color of choice. Constructed from durable technical plastics, the pen could endure countless color changes.”
Are you a technology marketing leader who lies awake at night worrying about the following?
“Keeping up with the speed and complexity of the digital landscape.”
Well, maybe not that exact phrase. That sounds like something generative AI would write.
And in fact, my buddy Bredebot wrote it when answering a question about Chief Marketing Officer pain points relative to content.
Bredebot is the one in the middle.
But I’m not going to let Bredebot write an entire post about it, because I’m going to write it myself.
The human way to reflect the sentiment above is to ask whether your content is up-to-date, or is as dated as a Pentium.
And that’s something that a marketing leader DOES worry about, because they (usually) want their firms to be perceived as innovative, not old fashioned.
Let me give you an example of outdated content that persists today.
SEO, AEO, GEO…I believe they’re different
For years we have been discussing search engine optimization, or SEO. The whole point of SEO is to ensure that your content appears at the top of results when you use Google or Bing or another search engine to launch a search. (Ignore “sponsored content” for a minute here.)
In case you haven’t noticed, fewer and fewer people are using search engines. Instead, they are searching for answers from their favorite generative AI tool, and now the new term the kids are using is answer engine optimization, or AEO. Or perhaps you can follow the lead of Go Fish and refer to generative engine optimization, or GEO.
Now some people are continuing to use SEO when they mean AEO and GEO, under the theory that it’s all just optimization, and it’s all just searching but just with a different tool. Personally, I believe that continuing to refer to SEO is confusing because the term has always been associated with search engines.
“Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking for keywords, AEO concentrates on providing comprehensive, authoritative answers that AI systems can easily process and deliver to users….
“Think about how you use AI tools today. You don’t ask for ‘electrician Auckland residential services’, you ask, ‘What’s causing the flickering in my kitchen lights?’ or ‘How much should it cost to rewire a 1970s house?’ You want answers, not search results.”
But forget about XEO and let’s return to the content YOU create.
How do you keep YOUR content up-to-date?
Let’s say that you’ve reached the point in your content calendar where you have to write a blog post about pop music.
And let’s also say that you’re old enough to remember the 20th century.
You may have a problem.
For example, when you see the words “pop music,” you may immediately spell the second word with a “z” and a “k” when you TALK ABOUT.
And now that I’ve lost half my reading audience, you can see my point. While personas are approximations, you need to refer to them when crafting your content. If your hungry people (target audience) tend to be in their 20s and 30s, they’re probably not going to understand or respond to songs from M (Robin Scott) or Kraftwerk.
So how does a marketer ensure that their content is not dated? By remembering to ask, then act. Question your assumptions, do your research, write your content, then check your content.
Question your assumptions
Before you write your content, ensure your premise is correct. For example, I didn’t assume without questioning that “keeping up with the speed and complexity of the digital landscape” was a pressing issue. I KNEW that it was a pressing issue, because I encounter it daily.
Do your research
Next, take a moment and check what you are about to say. Was your assumption about fingerprint examiner infallibility affected by the NAS report? Was your assumption affected by activities that occurred after the NAS report?
Write your content
At some point you have to stop asking and start acting, writing your content. Write your draft 0.5 to get your thoughts down, then write your draft 1.0. And keep your personas in mind while you do it.
Check your content
Once it’s drafted, check it again. Have your dated assumptions crept into your writing? Did you use the term “SEO” out of habit, by mistake? Fix it.
The results of up-to-date content
If you do all these things, you’ll ensure that your competitors don’t laugh at your content and tell you how out of touch you are.
Ideally, you want your competitors to show how out of date they are.
“Look at WidgetCorp, who doesn’t even know how to spell! Their writer’s left finger slipped while typing, and they typed the so-called word ‘AEO’ rather than ‘SEO’! Everybody know the term is SEO!”
Which gives you the opportunity to write a succinct reply to your bozo competitor.
I’ll give you the joy of writing it yourself.
Unless you want Bredemarket to write it, or other content. Book a free meeting to discuss your needs. https://bredemarket.com/mark/
I’ve said that strategy is one of four essential elements of product marketing. But you have to know what strategy is…and what it is not.
To illustrate the difference between strategy and tactics, it helps to differentiate between abstract, long term goals and concrete, short term goals.
If your goal is to better the world, that’s a strategy.
If your goal is to excel in a particular industry, that’s a strategy.
Although strategies can change. Those who know of Nokia as a telecommunications company, and those who remember Nokia as a phone supplier, are not old enough to remember Nokia’s beginnings as a pulp mill in 1865.
If your goal is to secure business from a specific prospect, that’s a tactic. Or it should be.
It’s just that one tactical blunder upended that strategy.
Whether Bredemarket pivots from biometric content to resume writing (not likely), I am presently equipped to address both your strategic and tactical product marketing needs. If I can help you, talk to me at https://bredemarket.com/mark/.
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