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I find it strange that bots are considered distinct from humans. Bots don't spring from the ether, they're made by humans - even the AI-powered bots. It might
by z3c0 2y ago
I find it strange that bots are considered distinct from humans. Bots don't spring from the ether, they're made by humans - even the AI-powered bots.
It might be better framed as "half the Internet's traffic comes from a subset of power users who automated their interactions with the web." Maybe we need less "agentic design" and more APIs.
- delaugust 2y agoThis is a great point, as far as the understanding of "bot" is concerned. Although I think the overall point is that the bots create an algorithmic determinism toward information.
- z3c0 2y agoI do agree with the overall trend the author is observing, but I guess what I was getting at is that this is sort of an old problem extending to the web. There's a unique social stigma around "bots" that isn't applied the same way to power users of any other system (understandably so, given some are nefarious). I believe this largely gave way to AI-powered bots, as there's a demand for bots to behave as humanly as possible to 1) minimize obstructions like 403s and 2) maximize the extraction of information. Maybe if web servers were broadly designed thinking of bots as power users, the web would bifurcate into a "optimized web" for bots (APIs), and a "traditional web" for humans (HTML). Instead, we're getting this mess of bots and humans all trying to squeeze through the same doorway.