Cloudflare releases major free upgrade for AI bot blocking

I’ve been following developments in the AI space closely since both Midjourney (image creation) and Chat GPT were first released in 2022. I was immediately struck by two things: 1. The power of the technology and 2. The potential danger of the technology.

There are many uses where AI can come in handy for creatives. We even wrote about it in the magazine. Embracing AI in Your Handmade Business was written to give ideas where AI could help you get out of your rut if you were stuck while attempting to problem solve.

I’ve also watched with concern and alarm as the great AI arms race has unfolded. In 2024, “According to new figures from analytics firm Dealroom, AI startups raised $110 billion last year, 62% more than the year before.” Source: Techcrunch An enormous amount of money is handed to AI startups to build the next great thing.

AI scraping EVERYTHING has been the norm. And artisans were some of the first people to get hit, as these companies scooped up everything to feed into their models. Often when technology is disruptive, the legislation regulating it can’t keep up. There is a window of time, sometimes spanning many years, where it really is like fighting in a jungle.

It also didn’t take long for technologists to start fighting back. Glaze adds a new free product to help artisans and Glaze adds a new free WebGlaze product to help artisans are two articles we wrote about this free product sharing how artisans can protect their images from AI scraping. And then the same team behind Glaze released Nightshade to poison AI models that were scraping.

While all this was happening- fighting back was at such a micro level. It felt like the individual artisan business was on their own to figure this out. But in the last month, two important developments have occurred. Two very large companies have entered the fight in different ways. The Mouse has entered the AI house is our first article sharing lawsuits around image use. And now Cloudflare has entered the conversation. Approximately 20% of the web is using Cloudflare, which makes this a seismic announcement.

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