… the language we are using about AI adoption is very similar to how Clayton Williams described rape.

“It’s happening whether you want it or not.”

“Better get on board if you know what’s good for you.”

“If you want to keep working here, this is what it takes.”

“You can’t yell it away.”

“It’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

Am I comparing AI to rape? I am not. I am, however, comparing the language we use when discussing AI adoption to the language of rape culture. It’s the language of coercion. Language that implies a lack of choice and reminds you of the power those who are using it have over you. A lack of agency. It’s language that does not rely on consent, but instead the idea that we are bereft of choices, so we might as well get with the program.

In this post, we’re going to explore how the company Bright Data facilitates modern AI models scraping training data from the Internet using its residential proxy network.

Bright Data is a data-collection company that sells access to what it markets as the world’s largest residential proxy network of 400M+ home IP addresses that its customers route web-scraping traffic through. The supply behind that network comes from an SDK: a piece of software embedded in consumer apps that, with the user’s consent, turns their phone or smart TV into one of those exit nodes.

We’ll document what you, the average user, should know about what this company’s SDK does on your systems such as your mobile phone and your smart TV. We’re going to explore how their SDK works, which platforms have shipped it, and why your Internet-connected TV is the ultimate proxy for AI models looking to train on data scraped from the Internet.