7-3-25 - Blocking AI from Scraping Content and a Physical Ad Blocker

In this episode, Ashley Coffey and Daniel Hill discuss the latest AI news, focusing on CloudFlare's new technology to block AI bots from scraping content, Meta's controversial use of AI to access users' camera rolls, an innovative ad blocker for real life, and Mark Zuckerberg's ambitions for AI to manage personal data and tasks. The conversation highlights the ethical implications and privacy concerns surrounding these advancements in AI technology.

Links:

1. Cloudflare vs AI Bots: A Game-Changer for Publishers: Millions of websites, including major publishers, can now block AI bots from scraping their content without permission! (TechCrunch)

Key Highlights:
Cloudflare launches tech to block AI crawlers and protect creator content.
Future plans include a “Pay Per Crawl” model letting creators charge AI firms.
Some experts argue that stronger legal protections are still needed.
Publishers hail this as a major step toward fair value exchange and accountability for AI companies.

2. Facebook is asking to use Meta AI on photos in your camera roll you haven’t yet shared (TechCrunch)

Key Highlights:
Facebook is asking users for access to their phone’s camera roll to automatically suggest AI-edited versions of their photos — including ones that haven’t been uploaded to Facebook yet. The feature is being suggested to Facebook users when they’re creating a new Story on the social networking app. As the pop-up message explains, by clicking “Allow,” you’ll let Facebook generate new ideas from your camera roll, like collages, recaps, AI restylings, or photo themes.
To work, Facebook says it will upload media from your camera roll to its cloud (meaning its servers) on an “ongoing basis,” based on information like time, location, or themes. However, by tapping “Allow,” you are agreeing to Meta’s ToS. This allows your media and facial features to be analyzed by AI. The company will additionally use the date and presence of people or objects in your photos to craft its creative ideas. The creative tool is another example of the slippery slope that comes with sharing our personal media with AI providers. Like other tech giants, Meta has grand AI ambitions. Being able to tap into the personal photos users haven’t yet shared on Facebook’s social network could give the company an advantage in the AI race. Unfortunately for end users, in tech companies’ rush to stay ahead, it’s not always clear what they’re agreeing to when features like this appear.

3. Someone Built an Ad Blocker for Real Life, and I Can't Wait to Try It (Lifehacker)

Key Highlights:

Someone built an XR app for Snapchat Spectacles that blocks ads, and puts giant squares in front of them.
I hate ads. I use an ad-blocker on all my web usage (shout out to uBlock Origin!) I use a version of TikTok with no ads, I use a version of Instagram with no ads, I stream shows with no commercials, and I want to extend that to my real-life as much as possible.
Excited to see this come to life and would love to see it work on televisions.

4. Mark Zuckerberg Already Knows Your Life. Now He Wants His AI to Run It (Gizmodo)

Key Highlights:
The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerburg, is hiring a team of AI power hires, in a bid to be as ready as possible for where the world is going.

Zuckerberg now wants to build a new generation of models capable of what insiders call frontier performance. In simple terms, this means AI that can reason, plan, adapt, and act with little to no human instruction. This is the kind of AI that doesn’t just answer your questions. It runs your life.

Through Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the company already knows more about you than most of your friends do. It has spent the last 15 years quietly building a behavioral map of billions of people, tracking who you talk to, what you look at, what you say, and what you buy. That treasure trove of intimate data is now fuel for the next phase

Zuckerberg’s vision is for “agentic AI,” or AI that can take actions on your behalf. Imagine an always on, infinitely capable, personalized intelligence that lives on your phone, in your glasses, and across all your devices.
You don’t schedule meetings, it does.
You don’t organize your travel, it has already booked it.
You don’t wonder what job to apply for, it is already editing your résumé and simulating the interview.
You don’t ask what to wear, it saw your calendar and laid out your outfit.