Pay to Crawl

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Cloudflare introduces a private beta to a service where engines are required to pay to access the information on a site. It made me think.

AI breaks the open web model in at least three different ways.

  • First is that the open web gets filled with AI-generated garbage
  • Second is that any word posted anywhere, from websites to DMs, may be used to train models, and then later retold and sold as AI
  • Third is that the lack of transparency of how the models work is a fertile ground spreading precisely controlled lies (in the shape Generative Engine Optimization – GEO)

While the first and third don’t bother me much yet, the second bothers me a lot. I feel like Google broke the pact it made with the Internet to provide neutral web search in exchange for profiting from paid search. Now website owners need to pay so their content is crawled, so the different AI tools can present it as universal knowledge. Useful or not, many AI tools feed from the web and give content creators nothing in return. Here’s Cloudflare’s product idea – to charge crawlers, make it less unfair.

However, even though this is a step in the right direction, it still doesn’t feel right, even if there was a way to enforce it.

When BMW designs a car, they charge per car sold, not per car design stolen.

Frieda Klein

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I’m reading the series about Frieda Klein by Nicci French.

It’s a series of 8 books, 7 named after days of week, and one final. Frieda is a psychologist with a medical degree who always has a murder case to solve. She has the persistence of Harry Bosch and uses intuition and advanced questioning to untangle the ball of lies in each book.

The only downside of the series is that it has main antagonists who remain untouched over the series, like some kind of comic book supervillains.

I already finished the first 6 books of the series, having 2 left, and a few more with other protagonists. I gave 5*/5 to 5 of the 6 books and 4*/5 to one, which is pretty high for a series like that.

Little Things

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

Yesterday, I saw the Jetpack app on my phone and it felt like I’ve not turned that on in awhile. It made me think about how easily we let things slip. We do something regularly, then skip it once, then a few more times… and eventually, we just stop. Even if we made a clear commitment to keep it up.

Other examples:

  • Use that frontendmasters subscription, because I made a commitment to learn SVG animations but never did
  • A 10-year-old dashboard, from a past role, visiting which used to be second nature for me
  • Vacuuming the car
  • Checking up on an old friend who’s always happy to chat but never calls
  • Watering the plant in the other room
  • Reading a few pages of that book that’s boring but useful and I want to finish

I was greatly embarrassed and checked all 10-year-old dashboards, the trash in the car (uh, forgot one thing that just stays in the trunk), messaged a few friends, and watered the plant.

The frontendmasters sub is gone, I have to admit I’m not learning SVG animations any time soon.

AI Generated Billboards

~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

Sofia has lots of gambling ads. What recently made an impression on me is that 100% of the men advertising gambling are somewhat recognizable humans. 100% of the women advertising gambling look AI.

Flying coins, flying red things, oddly shaped arms, airbrushed flawless faces with exaggerated features. AI.

From left to right:

  • Marian Valev – actor, famous with his role in the successful Bulgarian TV show Undercover
  • Fiki Storaro – pop-folk singer
  • Dimitar Berbatov – the second or third most popular orb-kicker in the history of the country, depending on how far back in time we want to go

They all look real — shadows under the eyes, gray hair, wrinkles.

Is it a coincidence? I took most of these photos weeks ago and have been looking for an exception ever since. I haven’t found one.