Why Facebook, Craigslist No Longer Want Apple Scraping Their Websites for AI Training

Companies like Facebook and Instagram have decided to discontinue participating in Apple’s Applebot program, which trains Apple’s AI systems.  

The reason behind this mass pullout is the company’s unhappiness with how the web-crawling bot has been analyzing its websites in the name of AI development.

How Apple Scrapes Websites for AI Training

Originally designed to enhance Apple’s virtual assistant Siri and the iOS search system Spotlight, Applebot crawls publicly available websites to harvest content that can be used to refine AI capabilities.

While Apple claims such data scraping is for the greater good, there has been a growing disquiet about transparency and consent in the data collection process. Apple recently introduced a new tool called Applebot-Extended, allowing publishers to opt out of having their data used for AI training.

How Far Has Apple’s AI Progressed?

Apple’s investment in AI has led to the development of several advanced on-device AI models that can give Google and Microsoft’s AI models a run for their money.

These models rely heavily on inputs gathered by Applebot, underscoring the importance of data scraping in achieving sophisticated AI functionalities. However, companies like Facebook, Instagram, The New York Times, Craigslist, Vox Media, and Condé Nast aren’t buying Apple’s AI training story anymore.

Why Companies are Opting Out of Applebot

Many companies assert their content is a valuable asset and should not be used for AI training without explicit permission or fair compensation.

While they have blocked Applebot-Extended, they say the damage is already done with their data being collected before the opt-out option became available this year.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com / Below the Sky