interestingly, from googles perspective, there is probably no other choice than following openAIs lead in "becoming an answering machine" instead of staying just a search engine.

still sucks for the website providers and will eventually kill the internet.

@randahl @saarmuller

@randahl @saarmuller For now, most of these LLM search engine / crawlers adhere to robots.txt

Meaning, blocking these activities of stealing traffic and content is largely solved by a well crafted robots.txt file:

https://robotstxt.com/ai

You can easily setup a proxy like #haproxy to always serve a particular static robots.txt for all your domains in one go.

Additionally, with or without enterprise features, you can block all LLM traffic entirely in haproxy.

https://www.haproxy.com/blog/how-to-reliably-block-ai-crawlers-using-haproxy-enterprise

#llm

@randahl @saarmuller it is not (just) ai-generation at the search page. It is almost all pages, that Google and the other search engines link to, which are now created with genAI,

People created content for people to see, learn from, and enjoy. But when only machines see it, and people create enormous amounts of text based on it to create websites that end in the top search results, the internet becomes useless. Which is so frightening and sad.

@randahl @saarmuller That is roughly better than the US is doing probably.

I doubt europe politicans are completely asleep on this whereas USA politicans don't even know or care if its an issue.

My money would be on both options. Some on one idea and some on the other. Although some of the ones who don't know its an issue wouldn't care if they did... damn billionaires.

In order to be a billionaire in this lifetime as a corporation or bussiness, you usually have to be utterly corrupt.

I would say that is at least 90% of billonaires. I won't say 100%, but boy is it close

@randahl @saarmuller @osma AI breaks the delicate business model that the internet uses: dollars for eyeballs on your site.

Paying creators in a novel way is needed: using paid attribution offers a possible solution and is being explored now: see https://prorata.ai. Excellent podcast from BNR De Technoloog from October 2 discusses how this could work (in Dutch)

@randahl @saarmuller this is so friggin' sad #ai

@randahl @saarmuller
"Answer engines" is painfully accurate: Google used to be the library's index card system, now it's the know-it-all who blurts out answers that are just accurate enough to trick people into not actually reading and learning.

"Search engines like Google that once led users to the information on our website, which we presented and updated with so much care and effort, have now become 'answer engines'. This has huge consequences for us, as many potential visitors get an answer to their question before even reaching our site. But what answers are they getting? What useful information are they missing out on by not reaching our website and having a look around?.... Basically big tech companies are stealing our intellectual property. The big tech companies are the ones gaining from all the hours of work we have put into making and running our website, not us. Not you."

@randahl @saarmuller well, it's not only Google, bing and even Brave search have their "AI answers". Since paying each website owner is not possible the only solution is to forbid such AI tools which acquired their "knowledge" by scanning websites.

@randahl @saarmuller
If the bad guys can develop a dark web (let me be superficial), an alternative internet by means of an alternates dns service, why can’t there be a good guys alternate, uncorporatised, network?

@randahl @saarmuller

I dissent

I do not use Google for search, I've used Duckduck for a long time. The AI search summaries are fantastic!

The business model that relies on traffick can go hang. I want information and SEO has wrecked the web as a source of information, until AI search assist

For example: I was looking for some software, I had forgotten what it was called, and it had been discontinued. AI search found the new version for me and directed me straight to the github page

@randahl @saarmuller
Sites need to start protecting most of their content behind (free) registered user accounts, which would hopefully prevent automated systems from cataloging it. The extra effort may be too much for some providers, though, and it will lead to a less-open Internet.

@randahl @saarmuller
Before social media there were books and they were good. Mostly.
Then social media came along and some users started making books available on it for free to just anyone . This was not good for writers very few of whom make much money at all so they exhausted themselves screaming copyright while the majority ignored them. After all free books right?
One day AI came along and ate everything and vomited it back into peoples faces.
The End

@randahl @saarmuller
Not just for Google! There are so many AI bots from so many companies and start-ups out there that no protective measures are effective. Unfortunately. That leaves only two options: front-end access with password only (server also encrypted) or shut down.

@randahl @saarmuller So many profitable businesses have lost what they built for years because of they way Google does this type of thing. Fortunately, there are usually some methods to still get traffic from search for most businesses. But, the game is always changing. AI can still lead to a lot of traffic and discovery if you build your content strategy right.

@randahl @saarmuller
People have been working for free for google for as long as I can remember

I had three friends go through the google-acquisition process sometime between 2010-2017. All three stories were the same:

1. google expresses interest in buying your company
2. google spends six months doing a deep dive into your product while forcing you to drain your startup capital
3. google ceases talks and replicates your product a month later

They're vultures. Always have been

@randahl @saarmuller

With Folded Hands...

@randahl @saarmuller google is an empire acting like one. i doubt there is any political incentive to regulate the big tech bastards. only people using their imagination and principles can find solutions. it will not be easy and will require effort. i have actually lost work by refusing to have a google account. that tought me a lot about the state we are. nevertheless, i will always refuse.... my 2 cents

@randahl
They're wide awake, looking you in the eye while handing google the key to the kingdom.

Everyone who thinks that politicians in the US and EU are making "mistakes" need thorough deprogramming.

That is the system working as intended.

Former slaves having to pay off their owners are on the same timeline as total surveilance popping up against popular vote again and again.

Capitalist dictatorship is a deathcult and it will kill us if we let it.

People desperately need to read.

@randahl @saarmuller - 😣

@randahl @saarmuller Dead internet will not be a theory soon 😿

@randahl @saarmuller why Google still here 😒

@randahl @saarmuller it's called being an open source developer.

@randahl @saarmuller

Bugger.
a. That's really bad for the website, and for others;
b. I didn't know there was a website for cycling in Holland;
c. We plan on taking the tandem to Holland next year.

@randahl @saarmuller No comments. Comments are also stealed...

@randahl @saarmuller
1/2
google is only able to exist at all because the open source movement created a huge amount of infrastructure google was never required to pay for. (Yes, I get they have dontated a lot, relative to some companies. But in absolute terms, it's tiny compared to what most software professionals require to live of off, or relative to what it would have cost in the absence of the movement. )

@randahl @saarmuller

It is simply criminal not to compensate…

IP = Intelectual PROPERTY

It needs the attention of the EU.

@randahl @saarmuller
What's crazy is that these AI corps still haven't figured out how to monetize AI to justify the trillions they have spent on it. Now they are just ramming it down our throats. Next they will demand we bail them out. ☠️
https://www.citizen.org/news/openais-request-for-massive-government-bailout-package-is-pure-corporate-entitlement/

@randahl @saarmuller I suppose things do run in cycles, eh, Randahl? Enjoyed your last video.

@randahl @saarmuller

One Ring to bind them all, and in the darkness, rule them.

@randahl @tru @saarmuller

> The recent introduction of generative AI means that we no longer have any control over how big tech companies are using our information

Yeah, automated web spidering and page scraping has totally never been done before, and search engines have definitely never been cataloging and indexing and running analytics etc... until The AI came along and blah blah blah.

This is not the problem. Anyone who thinks that they ever had control over the content they placed online needs to wake up. Us old folks here may remember submitting our sites to search index queues, wanting our data to be spread across the internet for others (inc the search engines) to see and use and inspire.

But sure, blame The Algorithms (nevermind, this buzzword is from the last decade, now everyone blames AI like it's a monolithic problem (similar to the "fuck cars" lunatic fringe who ignore the facts).

People's illiberal policies and the flawed expectations on the content "owner's" side ... Those are the problem. Stop treating things like a monolithic issue and maybe look at the flawed expectations before blaming whatever buzzword is popular.

@randahl @saarmuller

This is sad, and likely the first domino of many.

So much for "Don't be Evil" and "Do the right thing," now it's just "Feed the machine at any cost "

#google #ai

@randahl This is very sad. I fear they aren't simply asleep at the handlebars, but, if the UK's emerging situation is still indicative of the EU trends, are on the payroll. @saarmuller

@randahl @saarmuller

@randahl
So, they are supporting their own butcher. It's not only google stealing content, there's another big player.
https://www.facebook.com/people/Holland-Cyclingcom/100027918354466/

Using Meta and complaining about Google, well, that's some kind of schizo, no?

@saarmuller

@randahl @saarmuller 🙁
Sad and I can understand the move

@randahl @saarmuller

Maybe block Google from accessing your servers?
This does work on Linux, not sure about MS_Windows

https://github.com/nickspaargaren/no-google

@randahl @saarmuller A successful parasite does not kill its host. This mad rush to AI is doing to the internet what cat and rabbits did to Australia.

@randahl Corporate America. Monetizing your hard work for millennia.

@randahl @saarmuller A parasite that kills its host. Is that a sustainable business model?

@randahl @saarmuller Sad news, indeed. Such risk (if not properly addressed) will results with more sites being closed down. I hope that the "market regulators" realise that once the source dries out the river will dry out as well. I know it is not a cheer up news for the news outlets but I hope it will trigger some actions.
Best of luck to Holland Cycling team I hope they can come up with a different solution to keep the team engaged and...earning money.

@randahl @saarmuller
Don't blame politicians for customers' choices. The use of pseudo #AI tools is voluntary.
It is not the fault of politicians that the average user wants to be part of this hype and pretends not to understand that this behavior harms the authors.

Also, take a look at the code of this website. Why didn't they use a local alternative to Google #Analytics or #adsense ? They criticize the ecosystem that they themselves helped to sustain.

@randahl @saarmuller

It would be nice to be able to tell if a visitor was a bot or not.

Otherwise, it starts thinking of ways to like scatter the pieces of information on the web and only make it possible to see the assembled site. By some means that would almost have to be an app which is objectable and could easily be replicated.

Who was it, though that was creating little maze traps for bots?

@randahl @saarmuller But what would the alternative be? To not share cool cycling routes? To keep everything secret?

@randahl @saarmuller Time to move to Gopher? Not sure they're scraping that yet.

@randahl @saarmuller That's not good because it's not like we Americans will do anything.

@randahl @saarmuller Boycott Google and move to @peertube