GPTBot

GPTBot is a web crawler operated by OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. It functions as an AI data scraper, systematically browsing the internet to collect publicly available web content. This data is then used to train and improve OpenAI's large language models (LLMs). The bot identifies itself in server logs with the user-agent string GPTBot. This transparency allows website owners to recognize its activity and manage its access to their content.

GPTBot is visiting your website to gather information that can be used to train OpenAI's AI models. It is particularly interested in high-quality, informative content that can help the models learn about a wide variety of topics and understand language patterns. The frequency of its visits depends on how often your content is updated and its perceived value for AI training. This crawling is considered authorized for public content, but OpenAI provides a clear opt-out mechanism for those who do not wish to contribute their data.

The primary purpose of GPTBot is to collect training data for OpenAI's language models. This data helps ensure that AI systems like ChatGPT have access to a broad range of information, allowing them to generate more accurate and helpful responses. For website owners, the activity provides an indirect benefit by contributing to the improvement of AI systems used by millions. However, it also raises concerns for some content creators regarding attribution and the commercial use of AI systems trained on their work.

If you do not want your website's content to be used to train OpenAI's models, you can block GPTBot by adding a specific disallow rule to your robots.txt file. This is the official and respected method for opting out.

To block GPTBot, add the following lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /