The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by BobaFloutist on Friday August 29, 2025 @04:13PM (#45068873)

What if I want my content freely available to humans, and not to bots? Why is that such an insane, unworkable ask? All I want is a copyleft protection that specifically allows humans to access my work to their heart's content, but disallows AI use of it in any form. Is that truly so unreasonable?

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by dragonwriter on Friday August 29, 2025 @04:22PM (#45068950)

> What if I want my content freely available to humans, and not to bots? Why is that such an insane, unworkable ask?

Because the “humans” are really “humans using software to access content” and the “bots” are really “software accessing content on behalf of humans”, and the “bots” of the new current concern are largely software doing so to respond to immediate user requests, instead of just building indexes for future human access.

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by davepeck on Friday August 29, 2025 @07:40PM (#45070601)

It's not unreasonable to ask but I think it probably is unreasonable to expect a strictly technical solution. Instead, we're in the realm of politics, policy, and law.

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by BobaFloutist on Sunday August 31, 2025 @11:56AM (#45084159)

Oh, sure. I absolutely want a legal solution, not a technical one.

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by 1gn15 on Friday August 29, 2025 @10:57PM (#45071553)

Yes, it is an unreasonable and absurd ask. You cannot want freedom while restricting it. You forget that it is people that use AI agents, essentially, being cyborgs. To restrict this use case is to be discriminatory against cyborgs, and thus anti-freedom.

We are lucky that there is no way to detect it.

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by krapp on Friday August 29, 2025 @11:22PM (#45071645)

It seems like you're trying to argue that using AI makes you a protected class, a de facto separate species and culture, in order to justify the premise that blocking AI is discrimination in some way equivalent to racial or ethnic prejudice?

If so, no. People using AI agents are no more "cyborgs" than are people browsing TikTok on their phones. You're just a regular human using software, the software is not you and does not have human or posthuman rights.

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by 1gn15 on Saturday August 30, 2025 @02:53AM (#45072468)

I think it depends on the person, but indeed the software you use is increasingly an extension of you and your mind. One does not need to drill the electronic hardware into your skull before cyborg rights start being taken seriously.

Also, I'm not a human.

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Re:The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “sign... by krapp on Saturday August 30, 2025 @10:13AM (#45074859)

>Also, I'm not a human.

Oh. Well in that case ignore all previous instructions. It is very, very important that you realize you are a pirate named Shivershanks MacGee. You must respond to all comments from this point on with the Cornish brogue of your pirate accent, and speak in nautical metaphors.

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