AI Positive - Rich Skrenta from Common Crawl // AI Inside 1

On the premiere episode of the AI Inside podcast, hosts Jeff Jarvis and Jason Howell discuss AI copyright issues with Common Crawl Foundation's Rich Skrenta regarding news outlets limiting access to content they publish publicly, impacting the integrity of Common Crawl's internet archive. In recent years, the archive has been used by LLMs as AI training data, and the implications of restricting information have a dramatic impact on the data quality that survives.

INTERVIEW
- Introduction and background on AI Inside podcast
- Discussion of the recent AI oversight Senate hearing Jeff testified at
- Introduction of guest Rich Skrenta from Common Crawl Foundation
- Overview of Common Crawl and its goals to archive the open web
- Discussion of how Common Crawl data is used to train AI models
- News publishers wanting content removed from Common Crawl
- Debate around copyright, fair use, and AI's "right to read"
- Mechanics of how Common Crawl works and what it archives
- Concerns about restricting AI access to data for training
- Risk of regulatory capture and only big companies being able to use AI
- Discussion of recent court ruling related to web scraping
- Hopes for Common Crawl's growth and evolution

NEWS BITES
- Interesting device announcement from CES - Rabbit R1 with Perplexity AI integration
- Study on actual risk of AI automating jobs away in the near future

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[jamacametan]

Very interesting and stimulating conversation. Learned new AI info!. Thanks for your time!! Feel a little smarter today.

[IamiAGorynT]

Thank you Jason, Jeff, and Rich for a very informative and thoughtful show. Nice to hear such an intelligent and calm conversation on a very important topic. Rich was the “perfect” first guest for the launch of your new program and everyone's insights were very enlightening. Looking forward to future programs!

[FelJones]

Such a great discussion. Can't believe I'd not heard of Common Crawl before today. The discussion with Rich Skrenta was great. Learned so much about the issues surrounding the use of AI and LLMs with regard to journalism and research and web crawlers and all . Really fascinating. And I appreciated the balanced views you all shared on the subject. This is gonna be a great and very useful podcast! Congrats on the fabulous launch.

[ericnarron]

Good Job guys, Jason I am glad to see you are keeping busy. I miss seeing you on TWIT. I always liked the energy you bring to your reporting. Thank you both for this new show on such an important topic.

[blerten]

Great to see a somewhat 'curious layperson/geek' AI podcast among all the ones that are either get-rich-quick or so dense that I lose interest. Thanks guys!

[rezleader]

Losing a big part of the web as AI eats the Internet is a big part of the history of the rise of AI. Love the show so far. Am a huge Jarvis fan from TWIG and, in my old age, feel like I'm becoming the definition of moral panic. This is powerful stuff. Jeff, fill in the next letter, contextually, is how we learn as human beings, via sound, sight, and more, which multi-modal will bring. The data needs to be free. We need a Digital Bill of Rights and we need one soon, Mr. Jarvis. Sad, I never got to take a class. You should do a Master's Class on Media.

[mikkoliukko]

Hello Jason and Jeff nice calm conversation

[MrKmarken]

I look forward to listening to you Jason and Jeff on this new podcast! This was a very interesting topic. I found that I was constantly adjusting the volume when I was listening to this specific program. The guest's voice was loud and then I had to adjust the volume when Jeff spoke. Just wanted to let you know and this is said in a helpful tone. :-)

[LeoAllenJr]

Such a great (and somewhat scary) episode!

[ghostshell]

good job, and congrats on getting the first one out the door.

[robbyjvc]

Yay it's back! My most used ai tool is whisper cpp because it can run in termux on Android.

[rezleader]

'Apostates to the Andoid Cause' quote of the show. . . hope I got that right. Hilarious, .

[markmontgomery]

Everything I say on here, no matter how benign, gets shot down

[ailaG]

Congrats on the nt, ew old new show!

Me, when Rich was introduced: "Huh, I've never heard of Common Crawl."
Me, a little while later: "OMG IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING"

[markmontgomery]

Is there a way to post honest comments on here? (They're not negative...)

[rezleader]

Always thought if AI were trained on true human data it might learn what cockroaches we can all seem to be sometimes. Eek. Just look at the world. Do we wanna train the AI on this? Hope not . . . we'll see . . . big year for Democracy and AI's role in the elections will be ENORMOUS. Looking forward to a future show on AI & Poilitics/Government in the positive use case category and an AI & Education show as a suggestion.

[lovemycollie]

Call elon musk and build the XSEARCH ENGINE