Currently, Aaron predicts that Nepenthes could be more attractive to rights holders who want the companies to pay to scrape their data. And many people seem excited to use it to reinforce robots.txt. But “some of the most exciting people are in the ‘Let It Burn’ category,” Aaron said. These people are attracted to tools such as nepenthes as an act of rebellion against AI, which makes the Internet less useful and pleasant for users.
Geuter told Ars that he considers Nepenthes “plus a socio -political statement than a technological solution (because the problem that is trying to address is not purely technical, is social, political, legal and needs very large levers).”
For Geuter, a computer scientist who has been writing about the social, political and structural impact of technology for two decades, AI is the “most aggressive” example of “technologies that are not made ‘for us’ but’ for us’ ‘ .
“It feels a bit like the social contract that society and the technological/engineering sector have had (you build useful things, and we agree that you are well) has been canceled on one side,” Geuter said. “And that side now wants his toy to eat the world. People feel threatened and want the threats to stop.”
As it evolves, so do the attacks, with a 2021 study Showing that the increasingly strong data poisoning attacks, for example, were able to break the data disinfection defenses. Whether these attacks can make a significant destruction or not, Geuter sees the sets as a “powerful symbol” of resistance to which Aaron and Nagy easily joined.
“It is a great signal to see that people are challenging the notion that we all have to do AI now,” Geuter said. “Because we do not. It is an choice. An choice that mainly benefits monopolists.”
Canvas creators like Nagy will probably be observing to see if poisoning attacks continue to grow in sophistication. On the Iocaine site, yes, he is protected from scratching Iocaine, he published this call to action: “Let’s make the AI poison the norm. If we all do, they will have nothing to crawl.”