OpenAI has introduced a new web crawler called GPTBot, which can be blocked by website administrators using the robots.txt file or by blocking the IP address. The crawler is intended to improve the accuracy and capabilities of OpenAI’s AI models, but website admins must take proactive measures to prevent GPTBot from accessing their sites. Some have speculated that OpenAI’s move could be a way to lobby for anti-scraping regulation or defend against future actions. However, data already collected by the crawler could still be subject to scrutiny.
Why do we care?
Do you and your customers care about your website content being used by ChatGPT? There are pros and cons here. You may want to assist with the bot’s knowledge; you may find value in its understanding of your market and recognize that you have no privacy or IP concerns. Or you may have concerns about any of these issues.
This is a smart opening to discussions with customers relevant to what is happening in the field. Yes or no to GPTBot?