Comment by za_creature
17 hours ago
A web browser isn't a bot as long as it's controlled by a human but it becomes one once it's automated.
You are entitled to your own emails, posts, etc but you are not entitled to crawl the internet for your own purposes without stating what they are and allowing websites an opt out.
> A web browser isn't a bot as long as it's controlled by a human but it becomes one once it's automated.
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.
Using a computer to do "by hand" is a vague concept, yes, but laws routinely embrace vague concepts. You used it yourself! "Hand-crafting", you said. It could be pinned down more closely to something like a single action that happens quite soon after you press a button or ... and further wrangling could ensue because it's never going to have all the vagueness removed. 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").
> It could be pinned down more closely to something like a single action that happens quite soon after you press a button
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.
> All of the code in a browser is "automation"
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.
I am curious about your view on accessibility tooling. Often screen readers or speech to text tools would effectively be external pieces of software instrumenting for instance browsers through their APIs. And surely using local AI going forward could enhance the tooling while also making the users less dependent on a small market charging exorbitant prices for poor user experience. What viable paths do you see for users perfecting user agents for themselves when the big browsers further lose their plot and focus on what's fun to maintain or profitable to ship instead of optimising for every user individually?
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If I have a browser extension that reloads a page every 5 minutes, so I can visually see if an update has happened, is that controlled by a human? What about 5 seconds? Does it matter if it the extension opens the page in a new tab every 5 weeks at my direction? Does it matter if the page is on Reddit, and I prefer entertainment through comment trolling? Does it matter if the page is on Ticketmaster and I might be reselling concert tickets?
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.
> If I have a browser extension that reloads a page every 5 minutes, so I can visually see if an update has happened, is that controlled by a human?
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.
I'm taking you at your word, and believe you're stating these things in good faith. As I hope you believe me. Yet I hope what you want never comes to pass. If it does, that world would be confusing, and our society will have lost something valuable.
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.
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