Cloudflare's One-Click Block For All AI Scrapers
Plus: SenseTime released SenseNova 5.5, Waymo's Robotaxi gets busted by the cops.
Hello Engineering Leaders and AI Enthusiasts!
Welcome to the 312th edition of The AI Edge newsletter. This edition features how Cloudflare’s single-click tool to block all AI scrapers.
And a huge shoutout to our amazing readers. We appreciate you😊
In today’s edition:
🇨🇳 SenseTime released SenseNova 5.5 at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference
🛡️ Cloudflare launched a one-click feature to block all AI bots
🚨 Waymo's Robotaxi gets busted by the cops
📚 Knowledge Nugget: Why AI Infrastructure Startups Are Insanely Hard to Build by
Let’s go!
SenseTime released SenseNova 5.5 at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference
Leading Chinese AI company SenseTime released an upgrade to its SenseNova large model. The new 5.5 version boasts China's first real-time multimodal model on par with GPT-4o, a cheaper IoT-ready edge model, and a rapidly growing customer base.
SenseNova 5.5 packs a 30% performance boost, matching GPT-4o in interactivity and key metrics. The suite includes SenseNova 5o for seamless human-like interaction and SenseChat Lite-5.5 for lightning-fast inference on edge devices.
With industry-specific models for finance, agriculture, and tourism, SenseTime claims significant efficiency improvements in these sectors, such as 5x improvement in agricultural analysis and 8x in travel planning efficiency.
Why does it matter?
With the launch of "Project $0 Go," which offers free tokens and API migration consulting to enterprise users, combined with the advanced features of SenseNova 5.5, SenseTime will provide accessible and powerful AI solutions for businesses of all sizes.
Cloudflare launched a one-click feature to block all AI bots
Cloudflare just dropped a single-click tool to block all AI scrapers and crawlers. With demand for training data soaring and sneaky bots rising, this new feature helps users protect their precious content without hassle.
Bytespider, Amazonbot, ClaudeBot, and GPTBot are the most active AI crawlers on Cloudflare's network. Some bots spoof user agents to appear as real browsers, but Cloudflare's ML models still identify them. It uses global network signals to detect and block new scraping tools in real time. Customers can report misbehaving AI bots to Cloudflare for investigation.
Why does it matter?
While AI bots hit 39% of top sites in June, less than 3% fought back. With Cloudflare's new feature, websites can protect users' precious data and gain more control.
Waymo's Robotaxi gets busted by the cops
A self-driving Waymo vehicle was pulled over by a police officer in Phoenix after running a red light. The vehicle briefly entered an oncoming traffic lane before entering a parking lot. Bodycam footage shows the officer finding no one in the self-driving Jaguar I-Pace. Dispatch records state the vehicle "freaked out," and the officer couldn't issue a citation to the computer.
Waymo initially refused to discuss the incident but later claimed inconsistent construction signage caused the vehicle to enter the wrong lane for 30 seconds. Federal regulators are investigating the safety of Waymo's self-driving software.
Why does it matter?
The incident shows the complexity of deploying self-driving cars. As these vehicles become more common on our streets, companies must ensure these vehicles can safely and reliably handle real-world situations.
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Knowledge Nugget: Why AI Infrastructure Startups Are Insanely Hard to Build
In this article,
discusses that most AI infrastructure startups that provide services between the cloud and application layers struggle to secure the capital needed to win over enterprise customers. They face competition from industry giants and open-source community, both of which can quickly copy and commercialize innovations.
To survive in this challenging environment, he advises AI infra startups to narrow their scope, focus on a single workload, and secure long runways through sufficient funding or avoid VC money altogether. Hwang also suggests that startups be open to early acquisitions, even by less prestigious players, as the M&A landscape may worsen over time.
Why does it matter?
This article offers a realistic perspective on the difficulties of differentiating and scaling in this sector. AI startups must implement strategic planning and realistic expectations for sustainable business models.
What Else Is Happening❗
📰 Google researchers' paper warns that Gen AI ruins the internet
Most generative AI users use the tech to post fake or doctored content online; this AI-generated content influences public opinion, enables scams, and generates profit. The paper doesn't mention Google's issues and mistakes with AI, despite Google pushing the technology to its vast user base. (Link)
🖌️Stability AI announced a new free license for its AI models
Commercial use of the AI models is allowed for small businesses and creators with under $1M in revenue at no cost. Non-commercial use remains free for researchers, open-source devs, students, teachers, hobbyists, etc. Stability AI also pledged to improve SD3 Medium and share learnings quickly to benefit all. (Link)
⚡ Google DeepMind developed a new AI training technique called JEST
JEST ((joint example selection) trains on batches of data and uses a small AI model to grade data quality and select the best batches for training a larger model. It achieves 13x faster training speed and 10x better power efficiency than other methods. (Link)
🤖 Apple Intelligence is expected to launch in iOS 18.4 in spring 2025
This will bring major improvements to Siri. New AI features may be released incrementally in iOS point updates. iOS 18 betas later this year will provide more details on the AI features. (Link)
📸 A new WhatsApp beta version for Android lets you send photos to Meta AI
Users can ask Meta AI questions about objects or context in their photos. Meta AI will also offer photo editing capabilities within the WhatsApp chat interface. Users will have control over their pictures and can delete them anytime. (Link)
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