{"id":78105,"date":"2025-12-08T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dhblog.dream.press\/blog\/?p=78105"},"modified":"2026-08-14T12:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:50:29","slug":"ai-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/blog\/ai-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Ethics: Ease vs. Ownership"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The biggest AI ethics threat is platforms making decisions about your content without your consent, rather than the technology itself. While concerns about AI scraping are valid, real digital ethics means having the autonomy to set your own AI policies through technical controls like robots.txt, transparent usage statements, and infrastructure independence. Whether you choose full openness or complete opt-out, what matters is making that choice intentionally based on your own values and goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve noticed your favorite illustrator suddenly vanish from Instagram, or that one parent friend scrubbing every photo of their kid from Facebook, you\u2019re not imagining it. In the last few years, people have removed content from the web over concerns about generative AI<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That can look like a lot of different things: artists pulling their portfolios offline after discovering AI models spitting out paintings in their own style, parents deleting family photos over fears their kids\u2019 faces could end up in a deepfake, or businesses blocking AI crawlers from accessing their website entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DreamHost sees this firsthand: across the websites DreamHost hosts, site owners are actively<\/em> blocking some or all AI web crawlers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, there\u2019s a real and measurable concern about how AI tools access, understand, and ingest the content we all put online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that these worries are new. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internet has always<\/em> been a messy place for consent, privacy, and ownership. What\u2019s changed is that AI has forced everyone \u2014 creators, families, and small business owners alike \u2014 to finally confront just how little control they have over what they put online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At DreamHost, we\u2019ve always believed the open web thrives when creators control what they share and how it\u2019s used.<\/strong> The web works best when ownership sits with the people who built it \u2014 not just the platforms that profit from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that brings us to the heart of the matter. The real question is who gets to decide, rather than what AI can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should you block AI crawlers from your website?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Should you block AI crawlers? It depends on what you value more: visibility or control.<\/strong> Blocking AI training crawlers like GPTBot and Google-Extended tells compliant bots to leave your content out of model training, without removing you from traditional search results \u2014 though compliance is voluntary, and rogue scrapers can ignore the rules. Staying open maximizes your reach in AI answers and summaries. Neither choice is wrong. What matters is that you make it yourself, deliberately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI isn\u2019t the villain here. The real threat is \u201cplatform paternalism,\u201d or companies that make \u201cethical\u201d choices on behalf of everyone else.<\/strong> For example, in July 2025, Cloudflare (one of the web\u2019s largest network providers) began blocking AI crawlers by default<\/a> for new customers \u2014 its 2024 blocking tools had been opt-in \u2014 positioning the move as protection for creators. The result: for millions of new sites, the default answer to AI crawlers was decided by the provider, not the owner. Reversible, yes, but set without their input.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like your landlord locking your door for your<\/em> safety, but without giving you the right keys. So what started as a convenience quickly turns into a loss of agency. When gatekeepers decide what \u201cprotection\u201d looks like, individual autonomy shrinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open web<\/strong><\/a> was built on permissionless innovation, meaning anyone could create, share, and iterate without asking for approval. <\/strong>Intermediaries deciding which bots or tools can access content may rewind that freedom by decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why DreamHost advocates for infrastructure independence: when you <\/strong>host your own content<\/strong><\/a>, no one can rewrite your rules<\/strong>. Owning your stack means owning your policies, whether you welcome AI crawlers or shut them out entirely. The ethics don\u2019t come from code; they come from choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Servers<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI needs your data\u201d and other myths<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So what keeps creators from reclaiming control? Oftentimes, misinformation, like these pervasive myths surrounding AI. These myths are popular because AI use has proliferated around the internet and the tools we use every day<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myth #1: \u201cAI needs your data to progress\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

No one owes for-profit AI companies their work. Licensed and consent-based models exist; for example, Adobe Firefly trains on licensed content<\/a> with permission and public domain works without copyright. The future of AI doesn\u2019t need to depend on stealing. It can depend on consent instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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