Good morning. It’s Monday, September 1. Today we are covering:
Cloudflare’s CEO wants to save the web from AI’s oligarchs. Here’s why his plan isn’t crazy.
'Scan your face' laws for the web are having unexpected consequences
China Is Building a Brain-Computer Interface Industry
Cutting-Edge AI Was Supposed to Get Cheaper. It's More Expensive Than Ever
Mercedes-AMG Reveals Futuristic Tech Behind Record-Breaking Journey
Let’s dive in
Cloudflare’s CEO wants to save the web from AI’s oligarchs. Here’s why his plan isn’t crazy.
By Fred Vogelstein via Crazy Stupid Tech
AI chatbots are eroding the web’s referral economics: publishers see traffic from bots that answer directly instead of sending clicks; it’s now ~750× harder than classic Google search to get referrals (and ~37,000× from Anthropic), while bot crawling has spiked bandwidth costs (e.g., Wikipedia reports +50%).
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince proposes “pay-per-crawl” (launched July 1) and aims to leverage Cloudflare’s reach (~20% of sites) to block AI crawlers and force payments—especially from Google—backed by mounting antitrust pressure; some publishers may even block Googlebot.
The envisaged model licenses and “windows” content (think Netflix/Spotify economics); Cloudflare is blocking model training now with RAG/search blocks “coming soon,” has called out Perplexity as a bad actor, praises OpenAI as cooperative, and floats jurisdictional routing and even blockchain to handle global payouts at scale.
𝕏: Spent 90mins w @eastdakota. He’s trying to force Google,then rest of AI oligarchs to pay publishers to crawl content.Would revolutionize the web. Bet he succeeds.Cloudflare has mucho leverage.Atrust cops have Google on ropes.Latest from Crazy Stupid Tech. - Fred Vogelstein (@fvogelstein)
'Scan your face' laws for the web are having unexpected consequences
By Drew Harwell via Washington Post
U.K. Online Safety Act age checks (ID/face scans) triggered a collapse in traffic for compliant porn sites while 14 non-verifying sites doubled or tripled U.K. visits; government warnings spurred VPN apps to the top of charts, highlighting the unintended consequences of “scan your face” rules.
Enforcement and risks: Ofcom opened investigations and can levy tens of millions in fines; some sites blocked U.K. users or offered circumvention tips; vendors like Yoti charge $0.10–$0.25 per scan, creating heavy costs (an Indiana judge estimated >$13M/day exposure for Pornhub), alongside privacy breaches and AI misclassification concerns.
U.S. ripple effects: 25 states passed age-verification laws since 2022; the Supreme Court upheld Texas’s statute; Mississippi’s social-media law led Bluesky to block the state; South Dakota/Wyoming adopted broad “harmful to minors” rules, while major platforms in the U.K. (Spotify, Bluesky, X, Discord, Telegram, Reddit) began age checks, raising speech and privacy alarms.
𝕏: 4/ I suspect that some of the most durable consequences of the UK's age verification law will be both unintended and negative. - John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton)
The best way to reach new readers is through word of mouth. If you click THIS LINK in your inbox, it’ll create an easy-to-send pre-written email you can just fire off to some friends.
China Is Building a Brain-Computer Interface Industry
By Emily Mullin via WIRED
China released a policy document outlining plans to achieve breakthroughs in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology by 2027 and build a globally competitive industry by 2030.
The roadmap includes 17 steps such as improving brain-signal chips, decoding software, standardization, and mass production of both implantable and noninvasive devices for medical and consumer uses.
Chinese companies like NeuroXess and NeuCyber NeuroTech have already implanted devices in patients, enabling paralyzed users to control digital tools, with applications ranging from assistive technologies to driver safety monitoring and industrial hazard prevention.
𝕏: EVs, solar panels, and now, brain-computer interfaces. In a new policy document, China has signaled its ambition to become a world leader in the same technology that Elon Musk's Neuralink is building. - Emily Mullin (@emilylmullin)
Cutting-Edge AI Was Supposed to Get Cheaper. It's More Expensive Than Ever
By Christopher Mims via Wall Street Journal
The cost of training and deploying cutting-edge AI models has surged, with compute and data expenses outpacing early expectations of falling prices.
Startups and enterprises face mounting financial strain as cloud bills, GPU shortages, and energy demands drive AI development costs higher.
Rising expenses threaten to reshape the AI ecosystem, concentrating power among a few deep-pocketed firms while limiting innovation from smaller players.
𝕏: AI labs have managed to grab a significant piece of the profit generated by SaaS companies. - Ethan Mollick (@emollick)
Mercedes-AMG Reveals Futuristic Tech Behind Record-Breaking Journey
By Trinity Francis via Forbes
Mercedes-AMG’s Concept GT XX set a world record by circling the globe—40,075 km—in 7 days, 13 hours, 24 minutes, and 7 seconds, averaging 300 km/h.
The record was enabled by three axial flux motors, a direct liquid-cooled battery, and an advanced cooling system supporting 850 kW charging and precise thermal management.
With an ultra-low drag coefficient of 0.19, augmented reality racing tech, and new bio-based materials, Mercedes-AMG says the innovations will feed into production vehicles, starting with the upcoming AMG.EA platform.
Trending in AI
Thanks for reading to the bottom and soaking in our Newslit Daily fueled with highlights for your morning.
I hope you found it interesting and, needless to say, if you have any questions or feedback let me know by hitting reply.
Take care and see you tomorrow!
How was today’s email?
