Google made it possible to block the use of its artificial intelligence

Google recently announced a new "stand-alone product token", Google-Extended, which provides control over whether Bard and Vertex AI can access content on a given website.

Bard is Google's conversational AI tool, similar to the most familiar ChatGPT. Vertex AI is Google's machine learning platform for building and deploying generative search and chat applications powered by artificial intelligence.

"Today we're announcing Google-Extended, a new control method that website operators can use to enhance Bard and Vertex AI, including the next generations of products that will be based on these two models. By using Google-Extended, the webmaster can choose whether or not to help the development of artificial intelligence to become even more accurate and capable over time. "
– Danielle Romain

What is Google-Extended anyway? It is a simple text file that website operators can use to block access to artificial intelligence developed by Google from using the website to retrieve data.

All the administrator of a certain website has to do is to add a text file "robots.txt" in which he enters two simple parameters, namely "User-agent: Google-Extended", which tells Google's artificial intelligence, that it is "him" and "Disallow: /", which means that he does not have access to this website or is not allowed to "read" it.

A similar option is offered by GPTBot, which blocks the use of the most popular artificial intelligence ChatGPT to "read" web pages. Currently, 242 of the 1000 most popular sites in the world still block access to ChatGPT. Among others, pinterest.com, theguardian.com, usatoday.com, stackexchange.com, webmd.com, dictionary.com, washingtonpost.com.