ai is robot, no?
Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
111–120 of 296 posts
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#112I think really most sites should (ideally) come with a text-only version. I know that's probably an extreme minority opinion but between console-based browsers, screenreaders, people with crappy devices, people with miniature devices, at the very least just having some kind of 'about this site' document would be helpful for anyone. There seems to be overlap between that need and this, possibly.
Then again, having it in some format like json (or xml) might also be more 'accessible' to machines (and to certain devices).
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#113Do we need more features that are generally ignored? What has robots.txt gotten us? What has Do Not Track gotten us?
> What has robots.txt gotten us
A standard protocol for reputable crawlers to semantically understand some high-level page navigation rules.
Actual, useful crawling (i.e. to build search indices) would be much messier and more useless without most interesting sites putting up meaningful robots.txt guide-rails. Look at facebook.com/robots.txt and consider how much crap both Facebook and indexers would have to deal with lacking that information.
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#114Why? So that they can both be ignored?
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#115Using robots.txt as a model for anything doesn't work. All a robots.txt is is a polite request to please follow the rules in it, there is no "legal" agreement to follow those rules, only a moral imperative. Robots.txt has failed as a system, if it hadn't we wouldn't have captchas or Cloudflare. In the age of AI we need to better understand where copyright applies to it, and potentially need reform of copyright to ali…
>"All a robots.txt is is a polite request to please follow the rules in it, there is no "legal" agreement to follow those rules, only a moral imperative"
Up until the point when some person / entity with the deep pockets will put a clear license / terms of use on their site that prohibits ignoring of robots.txt and would be willing to sue the ignorant.
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#116I'm ready to put an ai.txt right on my site
Kirk: Everything Harry tells you is a lie. Remember that. Everything Harry tells you is a lie.
Harry: Listen to this carefully, Norman. I am lying.Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#117 # cat > /var/www/.well-known/ai.txt
Disallow: *
^D
# systemctl restart apache2
Please share with me ideas, links and further reading about adversarial anti-AI countermeasures.
EDIT: I've made an Ask HN for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35888849
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Robots.txt has failed as a system, if it hadn't we wouldn't have captchas or Cloudflare. Failing to solve every problem does not mean a solution is a failure. From sunscreen to seatbelts, the world is full of great solutions that occasionally fail due to statistics and large numbers.
That's still not an argument to introduce ai.txt, because everything a hypothetical ai.txt could ever do is already done just as good (or not) by the robots.txt we have. If a training data crawler ignores robots.txt it won't bother checking for an ai.txt either. And if you feel like rolling out the "welcome friend!" doormat to a particular training data crawler, you are free to dedicate as detailed a robots.txt block…
worse, ai.txt could become an adversarial vector for attempts to trick the AI into filing your information under some semantic concept
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#119I'm curious what the legal ramifications of adding "this code is not to be used for any ML algorithms, failure to adhere to this will result in a fine of at least one million dollars" (in smarter writing) to a software license would be. Seems like a dumb idea/not enforcable but maybe someone with software licensing knowledge can chime in.
Would this be enforceable if one has to first read a terms of use, then enter specific phrases from the terms of use into some fields and then enter a username and password? What makes a document on docusign/docushare enforceable?
This would block search engines but on some URL's this may be fine, such as data one would not want LLM's to hoover up.
Re: Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt”
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "We" now want stricter copyright law when it comes to AI, but at the same time shorter copyright duration... This gross generalization of other people's views on important issues is really offensive. My view is that the Copyright Act of 1976 had it about right when they established the duration of copyright. My view is that members of Congress were handsomely rewarded by a specific corporation to carve out special…
> Don't recruit me into some bullshit argument that rewrites history and entrenches Disney's ill-gotten monopoly. You don't think it's them being allowed to buy Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm? Is creativity ruined because I can't make a Mickey Mouse cartoon or t-shirt? Does the world need Luke Skywalker coming from any individual studio? People are free to make the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre D…
I was "doing the analysis" w/ Toy Story not long ago. They basically invented Woody/Buzz out of whole cloth, "guilty of being an incredibly lovable toy by association" (with other incredibly lovable toys). As I'm watching Toy Story with my kid, and seeing classic toys (eg: Mousetrap in the background), all the "friends" are legit copyright classics from other companies, but Buzz and Woody are "Disney/Pixar Exclusives" and nobody else can include them. A clever mechanism that seems to have paid off over two modern generations to guarantee they can "craft" a new copyrighted character at any moment (Buzz 2.0, Space Cowboy 9000, whatever...).