That doesn't mean anything. All of the code in a browser is "automation" -- normal users aren't hand-crafting the hundreds of HTTP requests the browser makes to render a single web page. Meanwhile there is a human somewhere telling the scrapers what to scrape.
> You are entitled to your own emails, posts, etc
Is that somewhere in the proposed text?
> but you are not entitled to crawl the internet for your own purposes without stating what they are and allowing websites an opt out.
"Stating what they are" buys you nothing when you have no way of verifying it, and you're still not providing any way to distinguish this from investigative journalism or e.g. a new competing search engine.
So leaving your webmail open is banned because it will still be checking for new messages three months after you opened the tab without any further human interaction. Likewise RSS readers or really any client which is intended to fetch new posts/messages when they appear.
> It's probably relative to current norms of computer use and what we do or don't automate casually (and thus describe as "by hand").
Which is kind of exactly the problem. A new law would presumably still be on the books in ten or twenty years. Do we expect user agents by then to do only the things they do now, or will they get more capable? Banning them from becoming more capable is the problem.
I don't think you are interpreting what I said in good faith, but here goes:
If you use an API to control a browser into navigating to a certain webpage, as opposed to using human interface devices to assert said control.
And no, AI is not a human interface device.
Some of them are already prevented from operating heavy machinery because doing so would put everyone at risk, so there is precedent here. I'm in favor of making concessions to the very unfortunate, though at some point you have to look at percentages, expected impact and decide what is reasonable and what isn't.
To your other question, in the last week there have been entire CPUs embedded within weights. Clearly it's possible to publish "open models" with an agenda so then what assurances you have that the enhancements provided by local ai would be more focused on the plot than what the big browsers do?
Specifically how would a person with disabilities be able to tell the difference between improved instrumentation and conditional access to information, as we have in other media? Consider this in the context of "compared to superintelligence, we all have an intelectual disability"
I had a disabled relative (who passed this year), and am quite amazed and offended to hear the viewpoint that those in their situation must suffer an "unfortunate reality" for the sake of everyone else. That's taking the "non-disabled people must accommodate them" (which has problems and is worth a lengthy discussion elsewhere) pendulum and swinging it like a wrecking ball.
What changes if I write my own browser? What if I name that Diff Browser (not "Diff Bhot") and it compares against the prior version to email me (erm, better say "display" because of this new law) only if there are differences? What if I'm blind and it does indeed email me after running through an AI to convert to output that's easier for me to read? What changes if the app is primarily intended to be on a "normal" screen, but is "minimized" and not displayed, though could be recalled whenever I want? What changes if it could be recalled but I never decide to do so? What if the screen is a 1x1 black/white pixel that indicates HTTP 200 vs anything else? What changes if I download this program from someone else and use it other than how they intended?
Which of these situations is "crawling" and which aren't?
You may believe you have clear definitions, but you don't.
No, but nobody cares if you reload one page every 5 minutes
> What about 5 seconds?
Definitely no, people will start caring after you do this for an hour or so.
> Does it matter if it the extension opens the page in a new tab every 5 weeks at my direction?
No, if you don't press a button to make it happen every time, it's automated. Also, nobody cares, you are not the intended target here.
> Does it matter if the page is on Reddit, and I prefer entertainment through comment trolling?
No, but being entertained at others' expense suggests some emotional issues you may want to check on.
> Does it matter if the page is on Ticketmaster and I might be reselling concert tickets?
Yes. Scalpers are bad for everyone but themselves.
> What changes if I write my own browser?
Nothing.
> What if I name that Diff Browser (not "Diff Bhot") and it compares against the prior version to email me (erm, better say "display" because of this new law) only if there are differences?
It's still automated, thus a bot. There might be a fair use case if you could've refreshed the pages manually, but what you are describing is RSS.
> What if I'm blind and it does indeed email me after running through an AI to convert to output that's easier for me to read?
I've addressed it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50311855
You are unhappy with my response, though I have reason to believe you are biased given your recent loss. I'm sorry for that, though your argument there is the same but with less mass behind the wrecking ball.
> What changes if the app is primarily intended to be on a "normal" screen, but is "minimized" and not displayed, though could be recalled whenever I want?
Are you recalling it manually or automatically?
> What changes if it could be recalled but I never decide to do so?
Then no crawling happens so you don't have to worry about anything?
> What if the screen is a 1x1 black/white pixel that indicates HTTP 200 vs anything else?
This would be automation, since a browser does not behave that way for a normal user.
> What changes if I download this program from someone else and use it other than how they intended?
This is not about programs, it's about websites being crawled against the wishes of their authors.
> You may believe you have clear definitions, but you don't.
Once again, I'm sorry for your loss and any grief my message may have caused you.
For example, you say "nobody cares if you reload one page", implying there is a limit -- where is that limit? How many kids in a poor country do I need to hire in order to stay under that per-person limit and continue my business as usual?
> This is not about programs, it's about websites being crawled against the wishes of their authors.
This is very much about programs, because that is the only way anyone accesses a web site. Time-shifting is legal for TV, for example, and that's a good thing, even if broadcasters wish it was banned. We need parallels for the web that balance both users and site owners, and other than robots.txt as a frequently ignored handshake agreement, I don't know much that exists in this area.
Thank you for your condolences. I mentioned the relative passing primarily to explain my past tense and to be honest about not staying updated on that situation despite having been recently informed. They passed from age-related health problems after a good, productive life. I have their picture with a former US president on my wall, from the signing of a disability-related law. I believe my only bias in this area is that I have been directly informed through frank discussion, without the normal barriers you might imagine between non-relatives.
You can't demand this degree of specificity from laws - that's not how good laws work. The limit should be reasonableness and intent.
Refreshing hacker news every 5 minutes isn't unreasonable. Refreshing some 5GB file on archive.org that never changes would be unreasonable.
Hell it's easy to come up with examples that would be outright fraud (deceit to acquire something of value) and deserve criminal charges. Refreshing a booking website in a manner to trick it into thinking you're about to reserve something to prevent other people from doing so - e.g. to keep people out of nearby campsites on a camping trip.
> How many kids in a poor country do I need to hire in order to stay under that per-person limit and continue my business as usual?
Up to a jury. But there's clearly a limit at which the answer is "no amount". It's well established that distributed denial of service attacks are illegal after all.
Criminalizing a fan who really, really wants Taylor Swift tickets so that you also prevent ticket scalpers, who would do the exact same observable actions, is not going anywhere good.
When limits must be decided like this, our definitions cannot be enforced by technology, and we can't afford judges and juries to handle the scale of the current situation. Look at the original post I replied to, which appears to believe we can easily define "automated" in a way that's useful to meet the wishes of site owners against the wishes of site visitors, regardless of visitor intent and regardless of accommodation for disabled visitors.
I believe this is the crux of our disagreement. Clearly you can't, which is why you must assume good faith and service all innocent-looking requests.
What you can do however is temporarily log and search for patterns in multiple HTTP requests. If you can then prove that these requests came from a bot via the plethora of fingerprinting measures already in use, you have grounds to make a complaint to the FTC, which would have the ability to subpoena the identity of the offending entity and, depending on their history, issue a warning, a fine or file a lawsuit.
The current status quo is that attackers have an advantage in that the worst thing that you can do to them is to temporarily block them, and you don't really want to do this because you're never 100% sure whether any _individual_ request is automated.
While I can't say that this law is good for this purpose, I am pointing out that the solution looks something like it. The goal is not blocking the individual, but doing something about infra-level abusers, at a volume where 95% accuracy is sufficient proof of wrongdoing. All of your arguments are valid and would be tried in court in response to this passing, hopefully for the better but ultimately it depends on how good the justice system is. This last thing is something no amount of technology can fix but in that case illegal scraping is the least of our problems.
... that's why the proposed law doesn't try to?