Silicon Valley builds Amazon and gmail copycats to train AI agents

Silicon Valley startups' decision to clone major websites like Amazon and Gmail to train AI agents through reinforcement learning marks a significant development in the field of artificial intelligence. This approach allows AI agents to practice tasks such as booking flights or sending emails without being blocked by the real websites, which is a common issue when training AI models. For website owners, this means that they may see an increase in AI bot traffic on their sites, as these cloned websites are used to train AI agents. This could lead to concerns about the potential impact on website performance, security, and user experience. Website owners may need to revisit their strategies for managing AI bot traffic and consider implementing measures to detect and filter out traffic from cloned websites. To prepare for this potential increase in AI bot traffic, website owners can take several actionable steps. Firstly, they can review their llms.txt files to ensure that they are up-to-date and effectively managing AI bot access to their sites. Secondly, they can implement AI bot detection tools to identify and filter out traffic from cloned websites. Lastly, they can consider collaborating with AI startups to understand their training methods and develop strategies to mitigate any potential negative impacts on their websites.