I like tech but Ai is really spooky.

Having said that, Ai is making a mess of web traffic among all the other things.

How are people handling the massive surges in users that are apparently Ai crawler bots and whatever else, acting like DDoS attacks without being intentionally malicious (assumption), the whole thing is a real headache.

There are many facets to this topic, one also being the proliferation of Ai into everything, and Serach being an obvious one, where the top result is now an AI readout, that is and will kill clicks down the SERP page and changes user behaviours, causing revenue loss already I am sure.

Removing the need to think. Making knowledge access even more frictionless to the point that broad scale cognitive atrophy occurs, a net result, potentially further concentrating knowledge into smaller more powerful control groups (due to the current horsepower required). It's eating our energy supply too. Essentially we are at the BORG stage of the game.

As all should be rather familiar with now, it goes well beyond web traffic, but web traffic is the entry point here because this is where NodeBB's bread and butter is.

I flagged this in multiple places, years back at this point, with multiple warnings, adoption was done in haste, reaction was negative (as usual) and there was no due regard to Pandora's tsunami people thought they could surf safely, but the adoption of the Ai into anything and everything is what has allowed the Ai bot swarms to proliferate. it's a vicious cycle and maybe worse.

I could see and rationalise years ago that Ai itself is a parasitic technology and works in net deficit, it functions at a permanent net-negative (I understand many tech do not see it like this, feel free to posit your rebuttle). Why this is not glaringly obvious, is another point, but a fundamental one at that. There are other fundamental points. This is one that get's less airtime afaict.

Well have at it if you think you can add value to help the whole, server tips, what do you do to mitigate the server load, protect your content from the LLM plunder bots, etc. etc. - try stay on point in web traffic terms, as hard as it it due to the vastness of the consequences and implications before us, and Merry Christmas too while I'm here too! :santa: :christmas_tree: