Caroline Helbing

🚨 BREAKING: The EDPB has just published its ChatGPT Taskforce Report, and there is a big 🐘 ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM 🐘. Read this: ➡ On web scraping and "collection of training data, pre-processing of the data and training," the report recognizes that OpenAI relies on legitimate interest to collect and process personal data to train ChatGPT (OpenAI states that in a hidden page in its Help Center, as I've discussed previously). On that, the report says: 1. "It has to be recalled that the legal assessment of Article 6(1)(f) GDPR should be based on the following criteria: i) existence of a legitimate interest, ii) necessity of processing, as the personal data should be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed and iii) balancing of interests (...)" and also 2. "As already stated by the former Article 29 Working Party, adequate safeguards play a special role in reducing undue impact on data subjects and can therefore change the balancing test in favor of the controller. While the assessment of the lawfulness is still subject to pending investigations, such safeguards could inter alia be technical measures, defining precise collection criteria and ensuring that certain data categories are not collected or that certain sources (such as public social media profiles) are excluded from data collection. Furthermore, measures should be in place to delete or anonymise personal data that has been collected via web scraping before the training stage." ➡ What they are basically saying is that scraping to train ChatGPT under legitimate interest might be possible if technical measures are used, such as the ones described above. 🚨 Problems: ➡ If they are relying on legitimate interest, transparency obligations must be respected. ➵ Article 14.5 (b) of the GDPR says that in cases where it's not possible to notify data subjects of the information being processed (such as in the context of scraping), "the controller shall take appropriate measures to protect the data subject’s rights and freedoms and legitimate interests, including making the information publicly available." - ChatGPT's data is not publicly available. - Unlike a search engine, the data subject cannot exercise simple data subject rights, for example, the right to be forgotten. ➡ They are not anonymizing personal data, as the system still outputs information about people. ➡ They are closing various licensing deals with websites such as Reddit and other platforms that contain personal data. Obviously, they are not avoiding personal data and don't plan to do so. 🚨 Legitimate interest has been totally distorted here. Either the EDPB says that legitimate interest works differently for OpenAI and other AI companies relying on scraping to train AI (and explain why), or they require them to comply with legitimate interest according to the GDPR. ➡ Link to read the report below. ➡To receive my weekly analyses on AI policy & regulation, subscribe to my newsletter (link below).

Spotify’s podcast plan is going off the rails. The company is entering the ‘next phase’ of its podcast strategy — but will it learn from its mistakes? 1/

AI is going to kill the listicle, and i couldn't be more excited :') here's the thing: listicles form a core part of pretty much every content marketing strategy—but they have never delivered on their promise, never actually solved problems the way we pretend they do classic example: company X publishes "the 20 best CRMs for small businesses" in the months that follow keyword rankings tick up, traffic ticks up, the content and search teams generally pat themselves on the back despite the fact that we all KNOW that those pageviews and rankings are completely hollow, serving to - at best - introduce our brand to a few new faces, in a cursory, incidental kind of way all because: ~ the selection criteria in every listicle is basically nonexistent ("my keyword research tool told me to include these brands") ~ they are rife with shameless bias ("oh, you included your company in here? how surprising!") ~ there is zero firsthand experience on offer; all the information is rehashed from the existing search results, which are themselves rehashing the existing search results... it's crappy listicles all the way down and most damning of all: ~ nobody ever wants or needs 20 options. we want someone to share a strong opinion, a synthesis of the available options in response to our unique needs as a result: no reader *actually* trusts your listicle—we just use them as ugly access points into a topic, primitive databases laden with bias and misinformation that serve the limited purpose of adding an extra brand or two to our mental map of the space now for the good news: generative AI renders listicles obsolete a "perfect" listicle would be different for every reader, changing in response to their unique circumstances and needs. a static blog post can't deliver that... but a conversation with a generative AI model absolutely can feed your queries, questions and needs into a conversational model, trained on the existing search results, maybe some G2 data, and you get back something vastly more useful than any "traditional" listicle could ever offer the listicle will be the first content format to die at gen AI's hand, because it is already the thinnest form of content, little more than spun content at the best of times and that is fine by me "here, we pulled some options into one place" is the weakest type of value-add. as marketers, we should be dedicating our energy towards difficult, problem-solving content - stuff that requires critical analysis, firsthand experience, judgement and taste... and not just rote data collection bye-bye listicles. you will not be missed

Connect with like-minded people in tech, retail, marketing & research 🤝 Our monthly meetup is your chance to hear from #EthicalAllies! 📆April 26th, 13:00 CEST 📍Online call, email [email protected] for your invite! This month we'll talk #PrivacyAnxiety with @aelektron.

Today's the day! My new book, I SWEAR: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan, is out now. It's available wherever books and audiobooks (this one's narrated by me!) are sold. #ISwearBook More info ➡️ prh.com/katieporterbook

💡Why don't customers trust #SocialMedia & what can #retailers & #brands do about it? Last month, our Director @nrmueller sat down with industry experts @zaddica, @PernilleT & @aelektron to find out. 🍿 Grab your movie snack & get ready to learn 🎥 youtube.com/watch?v=BTLxbbru…