/~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~\ Title: LLMs and the smolnet Date: September 1, 2026 |~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~| So, Sava over at sava.rocks posted a new phlog entry about someone finding a Gemini/Gopher scaper for LLMs[0]. I groaned hard enough to actually hurt my jaw. I very much hate LLMs, and I've repeatedly struggled to keep my website online under the strain of shitty scrapers like Diffbot, and the "security scanners" that love poking at things using residential proxies. However, as with anything AI-related these days, I'm split. I don't like LLMs and genAI in the slightest, but at the same time...I've also seen how badly the anti-AI crowd can act. As an author, the times I've witnessed people who were honestly innocent of the "AI Accusations" have their reputations and careers ruined in an instant without due process is horrifying, and personally, I've had to do some verbal punching-down of people who clearly talked shit and needed to be hit with some reality. ... That said, if Camron Rye is reading this, expect me to find and block your bot in any way I can find. Much like my website, neither of my gopherholes are welcoming of LLM scrapers. The only scraping I welcome is from something the Internet Archive on my website, and only because I *like* the Internet Archive and archiving history[^0]. I understand people want to "experience things with an AI agent", and if they weren't so damned destructive, then I might not mind as much. But on top of environmental issues and power grid draw from the big names, they absolutely chew through bandwidth relentlessly and mercilessly when left unchecked and unleashed. That's a huge cost to me with no return whatsoever. It's not worth even allowing at that point. No. Just no. I do not consent to someone abusing my VPS, or any other server. Especially communties and pubnixes. \~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~/ [^0]: Yes, I welcome people to hit "Archive Now" for my website, and I am an author who will happily tell the Big Four publishers to go drown in a tar pit like the dinosaurs they are if it's in defense of the site. |~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~| [0]: gopher://sava.rocks/1/blog/when-the-small-web-gets-an-ai-door/