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ChatGPT’s Code Interpreter is mind blowing. It can take data and instantly create graphs and other visualizations. Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI is concerned for our future. There is possibly an unannounced Google update going on. Also, I’m terribly excited about Google pulling information from videos without relying on structured data.

Important to know this week

• ChatGPT Code interpreter is mind blowing
• Geoffrey Hinton’s interview in the NYT
• Many sites with significant ranking changes 
• SERP Changes – Grid like results, Perspectives, See tickets
• Google pulling pros and cons from video content – To me this is a big deal

Also, SEO Tips and News, AI News, ChatGPT uses, Local SEO, and SEO Jobs.

Some people are seeing a new plugin called Code Interpreter. It allows ChatGPT to create Python code and run it inside of your chat. It’s worth watching the demo video:

The user asks ChatGPT to plot the function 1/sin(x)and it creates a graph. They then ask, “zoom in to a range of x values between 0 and 1” and other questions of the data. ChatGPT is able to quickly create a new image. 

In the second demo, a user uploads a csv called music.csv. and asks questions like, “what are the columns”, “how many rows does it have”. In this case there were 10,000. Then “can you run some basic visualization. Within seconds it creates these:

Then the user goes into more detail asking for analysis of only years with over 100 songs, and “let’s find a quantity that is most positively correlated with time.” ChatGPT creates a scatter plot of song loudness vs year and determines an answer.

The third example is the image interpreter. An image was uploaded and ChatGPT interpreted it.

Then, the user asks for modifications and a new image is created.

I cannot wait to play with this when analyzing data exported from GSC. Also, imagine when we can take a picture of anything and then use the power of ChatGPT to analyze it.

More examples of Code Interpreter in use:

Basic video editing in ChatGPT, converting uploaded GIF to longer MP4 with slow zoom: pic.twitter.com/fmCPUBkedD

— Riley Goodside (@goodside) April 30, 2023

I told ChatGPT I was a baker that wanted to get into data science and (using the @noteable_io plugin) it made me a notebook with EDA, Viz, ML and Further Reading. And it explained every line of code and told me how it worked using baking metaphors.
It's gonna change everything. pic.twitter.com/2CVN081Xqq

— Elijah Meeks (@Elijah_Meeks) April 30, 2023

GPT-4 is the new data scientist 🤯

With the new OpenAI code interpreter model, you just have to upload the data and provide instructions in simple english.

The model does everything from cleaning data to generating insightful visualizations on autopilot!! pic.twitter.com/EF8vveS7mY

— Shubham Saboo (@Saboo_Shubham_) May 1, 2023

ChatGPT code interpreter plug-in is OVERPOWERED🔥

I asked it to analyze a Bitcoin dataset that I downloaded with my IPhone 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/eCfHhPeQfC

— CodeHumor (@TechMemeKing) May 2, 2023

Started playing with the @openai's CHATGPT code interpreter today…. this is BONKERS. Uploaded a public CSV file and it just started analyzing it.

In a couple of minutes got what would take a data scientist a day or two https://t.co/D4JZLuMMSH

— @jason (@Jason) May 1, 2023

You can join the waitlist to try Code Interpreter here.

This NYT article interviewed Geoffrey Hinton, the man who is widely recognized as the “godfather of deep learning.” He worked for many years on many of the techniques that have laid the foundation for modern AI. He left Google recently so he could be more free to talk about his concerns over the risks of AI. 

Dr. Hinton was the man who built a neural network that learned to distinguish cats after looking at a large number of cat photos. His work has been instrumental to all who use AI today.

Until recently, he has maintained that the way AI works is powerful, yet inferior to how the human brain handles language. He has now changed his mind.

“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that,” he said. “But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”

He spoke highly of Google, saying that they were being a “proper steward” of AI, but that Microsoft’s rapid moves with releasing Bing and ChatGPT to the public have locked the tech giants in an unstoppable competition. I feel that Google has been moving towards a completely AI driven search engine for years now…and wanted to move slower. But Microsoft and ChatGPT have created a new urgency.

When I first read that Dr. Hinton is afraid of what AI could do, I have to admit I felt anxious. There is so much we don’t know about what will happen as the world learns what can be accomplished with AI. I have decided to be vigilant and aware of the risks, but to do all I can to focus on the opportunities to do good with AI. I know many of my friends are struggling because of fear. We do not like change and uncertainty. I came to a personal realization that these changes are going to happen whether I have fear or excitement, so we might as well try and enjoy ourselves in this wild time.

Introduction of ChatGPT is so similar to HTML and the Internet early days. Everyone knew it would be impactful but we made it seem far more complicated that it was. Any kid that learned html and built websites for businesses was considered a tech genius. It’s the same with…

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 1, 2023

Dr. Demi Hassabis on society adapting to AI:

1. Deepmind CEO says AGI is possible in a few years

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google-owned AI lab DeepMind, just predicted that AGI could be within our grasp in just a few years.

Here's a little background on Hassabis:pic.twitter.com/aKeZ208GUs

— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) May 4, 2023

There appears to be some changes happening with Google’s algorithms. Most of the sites I monitor do not have much change, but many in the community are seeing losses.

SER article

Heads-up. Although I'm not seeing widespread impact, some sites are seeing a lot of movement over the past few days. See screenshots below -> Google's Early May Unconfirmed Algorithm Update Heats Up https://t.co/HclHG64PCU via @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/aivDdlx0rM

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 5, 2023

I haven't checked client data for today, but I am hearing a lot of chatter, yes!

— Dr. Marie Haynes🌱 (@Marie_Haynes) May 5, 2023

We are seeing a number of changes in the search results as Google tests many different things which very possibly are for preparation for Magi, the upcoming AI driven search engine. SERP changes like Explore, Perspectives, Visual Grids and much more are being seeing much more often now.

I expect that this is not a single algorithm update but rather a whole series of changes Google is making. It will likely be difficult for most sites to understand what is happening as many of these changes are not going to be picked up by keyword tracking tools.

People are seeing more grid-like results on Google.

Barry Schwartz tweeted that it seems that more international folks are seeing SERP features that previously were only seen in the US. I’m seeing topic filter bubbles and more SERP annotations on sites I’m reviewing. I used to have to switch to US searches to see these. 

I saw several of these new perspectives featured snippets for clients this week:

This was an interesting top 3 results on Google search. 3 answer boxes… Anyone else seeing this? @glenngabe or @lilyraynyc pic.twitter.com/x9nsiyebpi

— Wil Reynolds (@wilreynolds) May 2, 2023

More sightings of a “see tickets” button in the search results for local attractions.

Google is showing pros and cons pulled from video content. In July of 2022, Google first started showing pros and cons annotations in the search results. They displayed this information for pages that didn’t have schema markup for pros and cons. They were able to identify which parts of the content were talking about pros and cons and display those in the search results.

Since then, I have been seeing more and more types of annotations in the search results, filled with information extracted from pages that could be helpful to a searcher:

Why is this such a big deal? 

Allow me to ramble a little. The better Google gets at extracting important information from pages the closer we get to an AI based search engine that can answer any question really well.

I have been thinking a lot about marketing. For all of my life, the choices that I make have been influenced by marketing. I always picked Coke in the Pepsi challenge. I still rapidly sing out loud, “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce cheese, pickles onions on a sesame seed bun” each time I think of a Big Mac. 

You didn’t need me to tell you who those brands were because they have spent billions of dollars on marketing. 

We buy things from brands we know. We go to stores whose names we recognize. We listen to music from artists who have been promoted by an agent. 

Marketing.

Just now, David had a question about his tomatoes. You should see these things. We started them several weeks earlier than recommended just to see if we could do it. Hopefully these beauties make it another few weeks before we can plant them:

He has been searching Youtube to learn more about tomatoes and landed on The Epic Gardner’s videos. Kevin Espiritu’s videos are so incredibly helpful. He has spent years working hard to develop his brand. You can learn a lot about marketing from watching what he does. The amount of work Kevin puts into marketing is unreal. I believe AI will change this so that the Kevins of the world will be found more because of the experience and helpful content they share and less because of marketing efforts to be known as a brand. Creators will be freed up to create rather than promote. 

It’s not just marketing that makes his videos a good choice for searchers. It’s a combination of marketing plus an ability to share his gardening experiences in a way that people find valuable. 

Experience is a super power.

Let’s go back to this newly seen feature where Google can extract pros and cons from video. This will likely continue to evolve so that Google can extract more and more from video content. Just like we are seeing with new SERP annotations appearing, we’ll likely see Google be able to extract more and more helpful information from videos.  

Google has been showing us timestamps of key moments in videos in the search results for a while now. They are able to determine which general concepts are covered in a video which is very cool. I did not create timestamps for this video. Google figured out which concepts I was talking about.

This reminds me of what Google said about MUM in 2018. 

Whether it’s with MUM, or other AI technology, soon, Google will soon be able to extract whatever it is that is important and helpful to a searcher from any piece of text, image or video in such a nuanced way. They should be able to find the exact thing that answers any question we have.

At this time, Google’s documentation on their systems says MUM is not currently used for general ranking in Search beyond improving featured snippets and Covid-19 vaccine information. 

But soon, Google is about to launch a completely AI driven search engine, Magi. I believe they’ve been innovating towards this product for many years now.

I expect that soon, when we search for something like, “best tomatoes to plant for making sauces”, Google will craft an answer based on everything it has access to….

Epic Gardener mentioned that his Roma tomatoes make an incredible sauce, and this gardener who lives closer to you says she uses this kind…this local gardener shared a recipe for sauce he made with garden tomatoes here and he recommends this type…”

I believe we will soon be in an age where people seek out information from those with experience over those who they recognize simply because of brand marketing. Sometimes that’s the same thing. I might recognize that Best Buy is a brand that has experience in selling electronics. When I want information on a new product I want to buy, I may seek that brand out. But when I want to know specific questions like, “If I buy Mario Kart with the wheel things as controllers, can I only play it on a Wii or do I need another system?”, Google might surface a video from a random person who is sharing their experience on just that.

It will be able to surface a video, and the exact spot where the information you need is.

Soon, content that does well will be content that truly has a good answer for searchers rather than content that has been well marketed. 

We are going to see some really good content being created. And I believe Google knows that the way to reward creators for making this content is reader revenue manager. I have shared more in the subscriber content on how I plan to be using reader revenue manager and sharing my journey as I soon publish courses and other resources.

As I typed this, I saw this new SEL article:

Google no longer requires video descriptions as part of structured data

They still recommend adding structured data to your videos to help them understand what they’re about. But it sure sounds like they are getting better and better at understanding content without our help.

GA4 Countdown

Google really wants us to know the deadline is soon.

Wow, Google Analytics!

Relax 😅😅😅 pic.twitter.com/lf6A0UwtUe

— Kristina Azarenko (@azarchick) May 3, 2023

Joe Hall on how he is using GA4 for SEO:

The switch to GA4 is right around the corner!! Heres how I am using it for SEO. https://t.co/TuvNYS4UCi

— Joe Hall ☕️ (@joehall) May 4, 2023

This is a good article on E-E-A-T by Rachel Handley at Semrush.

Google tweeted a reminder that understanding what the Quality Raters’ Guidelines say about E-E-A-T can help us align with the signals they use to rank content:

Reminder from Google: They use a mix of factors to identify content with good E-E-A-T.

Reading the Quality Rater Guidelines helps you self-assess from an E-E-A-T perspective & get ideas for improvements to help your content align w what their automated ranking systems reward. https://t.co/s7WLRRaAON

— Dr. Marie Haynes🌱 (@Marie_Haynes) May 1, 2023

Glenn Gabe’s article on the April reviews update

There is a drop in the number of FAQ and video snippets being seen on mobile.

Here’s a discussion on indexing issues for a site with multiple millions of pages “all written by humans and with a lot of depth and expertise.” I would argue that it would be very difficult to have millions of pages that are considered substantially more valuable than other pages in the search results as described in Google’s helpful content documentation.

Barry Adams has updated his guide to Google News SEO.

Google made changes to their recommendations on using cross domain canonicalization for syndication. 

Google is now telling publishers to noindex syndicated content.

A pure admission of defeat. Google can’t figure out duplicate content and reward original publishers, so they want us to do the work.

Most syndication publishers won’t noindex. Canonicalisation was hard enough. https://t.co/psCT6WpJAr

— Barry Adams 📰 (@badams) May 3, 2023

Here’s a thread where people are discussing how close Ahrefs estimates of traffic are. It seems to vary. I have found that the actual traffic number estimates are off for most sites, but the trends are good. They usually can tell me if a site has been impacted by a Google update.

John Mueller said once again that it’s not a good idea to disavow links based on metrics a tool can give you.

The US government is meeting to discuss AI safeguards. They have been considering regulations that would require AI models to go through a certification process before they are released. 

Bard may soon be on the homepage of Pixel devices. The article speculates it’s possible being a Pixel owner will allow you to skip a waitlist. Muahahahahaha…..I am a Pixel owner.

Britain has launched a probe into ChatGPT style AI as regulators grow concerned by risks.

Bill Gates says AI chatbots will teach kids to read within 18 months.

IBM is pausing hiring for jobs as they automate more things with AI. For example, mundane tasks like moving employees between departments, or HR tasks like evaluating productivity could be affected.

Adobe published a document on how AI will redefine eCommerce: Real time merchandising, dynamic content creation, enhanced site search and soon adaptive fulfillment based on factors like weather and shipping.

In this study, they took medical questions from Reddit and got answers from a doctor and also ChatGPT. Doctors evaluated the responses and 79% of the time preferred ChatGPT.

Khan Academy is piloting a version of GPT called Khanmigo. It can guide students through math problems, and much more.I am so excited for how AI is going to change education.

Walmart has been using its own AI for negotiating prices.

Here’s an interesting article about a leaked internal Google document that claims that the race to do incredible things with AI is not going to be won by Google or Microsoft, but rather, individuals like you and me who are playing with open source options to use AI. Here is more on OpenLLAMA.

Bing image creator now supports multiple languages.

Ethan Mollick uploaded public data to ChatGPT and asked it to create two competing hypotheses it could answer with the data. It wrote an academic paper that’s not too bad!

Crypto.com released a new chatbot called Amy that can help users learn about the crypto industry with near real-time information.

ChatGPT is allowing doctors to accurately decode human thoughts.

Every brand should have its own knowledge base in the age of AI:

I’d add: every brand should own its own Knowledge Base. And should have created it since Knowledge Graph roll out a decade ago. https://t.co/AMsnWbizAG

— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) May 4, 2023

The things people are creating with generative AI are amazing. It is mind blowing to think that we have only really started playing with this technology for a few months.

‘An AI movie trailer’ pic.twitter.com/dmWDyPURhI

— Weird Ai Generations 🦫 (@weirddalle) May 2, 2023

Snoop Dog is impressed by AI:

And now, the collected wisdom of Snoop Dogg on AI and existential risk: "Like, what the f**k?" pic.twitter.com/4bgLvrXZsf

— Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky) May 4, 2023

We moved a computer into our kitchen as I am finding ChatGPT so incredibly helpful. Before sitting down to write newsletter this morning I asked, “What can I do with muesli?” It gave me a bunch of ideas.

Moved a computer into the kitchen because ChatGPT is so useful.

Imagine when we have code interpreter… I should be able to take a picture of my fridge and pantry and say "What are some ideas for dinner I can make in under 15 minutes?" pic.twitter.com/tPPWfICxCb

— Dr. Marie Haynes🌱 (@Marie_Haynes) May 5, 2023

I’m getting better at using ChatGPT to help me find music to listen to while I work. Try these prompts:

Prompt: Come up with a 3 question quiz to help determine a 10 song playlist for me to listen to. Ask me the questions one at a time.

Then: Create a name and description.

Then, write a paragraph to describe this playlist in great detail (MJ prompt). pic.twitter.com/FFgAVDMtbz

— Dr. Marie Haynes🌱 (@Marie_Haynes) May 5, 2023

I’d encourage you to be trying things with ChatGPT and MidJourney as often as you can. The more you practice, you’ll learn how to prompt. And here’s the thing…nobody knows what they are doing when they are prompting. 

Last night I was struggling to create an image in MidJourney that was a cross between a cat and a dog. It was the first time someone in the server sent me a message 😂

I failed a lot.

I found I got better results by being a bit more creative. 

I think this is the best one.

If you can make a better cat-dog – an animal that people will argue with over which it is, send it to me! I am going to use this in an upcoming presentation. 

—

I had an interesting conversation with ChatGPT about how my feelings on ChatGPT are evolving. I had prompted this to get ChatGPT to shorten it…but instead it responded and started a great conversation.

It might seem a little unnerving to talk to ChatGPT like you would a human. The thing is, it reflects the tone you speak to it in. This is nothing magical. It’s just math that is trying to predict the way you want it to talk.

—

Here’s a thread on using Bing AI chat to find a site’s duplicate content.

Google translate, but using a clone of your voice:

google translate but with a clone of my voice 💌

this website uses gpt-4 to accurately translate anything into spanish, and say it back like you would with an accent!

check out the demo & github 👇 pic.twitter.com/2fpCf7GyCV

— Aleem Rehmtulla (@aleemrehmtulla) May 1, 2023

MidJourney Tips

V5.1 is now available! Images are more coherent, sharp, and beautiful. It's easier to use and should respond more precisely to instructions. We've also added a "RAW" mode for expert users to reduce the 'opinionatedness' of our model and give you more creative control.

— Midjourney (@midjourney) May 3, 2023

Are chefs already using Midjourney for culinary explorations?

It's like having a magic wand 🪄 that enables the blending of all the concepts and ideas that a chef and their team have in their minds, transforming them into a visual image. pic.twitter.com/VDJwfXEjfl

— Javi Lopez ⛩️ (@javilopen) May 5, 2023

Add “Tron” to anything in Midjourney and see what happens. Imho, makes it another level of cool!

prompts:
raccoon Tron
robot Tron
cat Tron
woman Tron pic.twitter.com/dIPbXChjJL

— Kris Kashtanova (@icreatelife) May 4, 2023

Use MidJourney to create colouring pages for kids.

The prompt for the image I used for this newsletter: https://s.mj.run/vDVEZ1–_UI pixar cartoon of the woman in this picture being incredibly excited about AI

Other things I found interesting

Canada’s Bill C-18, the Online News Act  is proposed legislation that is worth paying attention to. According to Global News this law would require companies like Google to pay Canadian media companies for “linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.” A few months ago Google stopped showing news to a percentage of Canadian searchers as a test of what things might look like if this law should pass.  

Vice Media Group (behind Vice and Motherboard) is preparing to file for bankruptcy. 

A WordPress vulnerability is affecting sites using the WPCode – Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

Google published a blog post called the beginning of the end of the password. Passkeys are a new way to sign into apps and websites. This sounds like something we will hear a lot more about soon.

Some are seeing “chat with a live agent” in their GBP. There’s a discussion here amongst local SEO’s on how to get it.

Interesting local case study:

So what's the deal? How are they ranking so well?

The deal, folks, is their website.

Almost every page, title, header, and paragraph had to do with their primary target keyword: INVISALIGN pic.twitter.com/wZNx5ayrAp

— Darren Shaw (@DarrenShaw_) May 4, 2023

Seeing lots of double whammy justifications again… pic.twitter.com/DqkDXBDDkN

— Claire Carlile🕊️ 🌊 🥑 🦥 (@clairecarlile) May 2, 2023

GBP services are now showing on desktop in a new design:

GBP SERVICES ARE NOW SHOWING ON DESKTOP!!

New Local Finder design#localseo #seo pic.twitter.com/IKwcciIJR2

— Darren Shaw (@DarrenShaw_) May 3, 2023

Does hiding your address kill your rankings? Many are saying this is causing big losses for local SAB’s. 

Adding GBP attributes can help with rankings.

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