Bots: Demonspawn or potentially good thing?

OK, we have seen three major bots released in SL, and so far the result has not been good.

First, the Copybot, which was allegedly a Good Thing until it became clear that no-one was going to create an object for sale ever again in SL as long as it was around. Bad Thing.

Then, the Landbot, which does give urgent sellers a quick and reasonable sale of properties, but which also allows unscrupulous - let us be blunt here - assholes the opportunity to play Gotcha and exploit innocent errors by careless or uninformed Residents that can amount to significant amounts of RL money. Mixed Thing, at best.

Most lately, the ESC searchbot, which was a total bungle from start to finish, allowed the above-mentioned asshole types to exploit innocent Residents, never made available to shopping Residents more than a tiny percentage of the objects legitimately for sale, but revealed virtually all those that were not, and led its author, Electric Sheep Company, into a public relations debacle that should be studied at the Harvard Business School as a classic case of Really Bad Public Relations, and which has earned for it probably tens of thousands of permanent enemies who will be gunning for it in SL in every way from this day forward. A Guinness Book of World Records example of a Truly Stupid Thing.

So the track record, scored as kindly as possible, is 2.5 to 0.5. Not good.

Even so, I am personally neutral on the idea of bots as such; the concept seems to me very much a two-edged sword. If SL were a game, they are all obviously exploits. But it is not a game, it is a platform. Granted a bot comes into use when it benefits the owner of the bot, but the real question is: Are bots a good thing on balance that is off to a bad start, or are they a bad thing on balance that need to be exterminated, for the reasons that vermin in general are exterminated?

Intelligent comments are requested. Even self-serving ones - IF they are intelligent and not merely cases of mind-fucking such as we have seen too many of in these forums.

I believe they are benign unless they are being used only to search for mistakes and then pounce like the landbot run by L-ndbaron M-rlin.

Oh, you may want to fix your typo in your Guiness world record sentence. Wouldn't want you to look stupik.

Heh, thought I'd caught them all (no, I won't tell you about the ones I did catch!). Thanks.

Comment 1: There have been 3 "infamous" bots, and 0 "famous" bots. That means nothing. GOOD bots call no attention to themselves, they perform their duties efficiently and quietly without their actions or their consequences earning the emnity of residents. I have no doubt there are more than 3 types of unknown and well-behavied bots out there.

Comment 2: If you're serious about asking this question, cut out the damning crap like "a total bungle from start to finish". There will be plenty of heavy bias in the answers. Left as is, your OP looks more like you're trolling for yet another pointless argument.

Agree with Rusty's 2nd comment. If you are truly interested in an objective, intelligent conversation about the merits and demerits of bots, then dispense with the heavily loaded op-ed intro bits. This is a troll post from the get-go.

If they were fair, they'd be available to all.

they are.

SL provides many tools and a virtual economy with mechanism for easy conversion to US$. Perhaps the majority of SL residents don't really put in the time or effort to take advantage of those tools; fair enough, there's no reason SL should be "work" for them if they just want to come in and have fun.

However, many people have a desire or affinity for one or more of the tools provided. At some point they've spent or they spend countless hours mastering such things Photoshop, programming, sociology, or economics. Many of them do this for the sheer joy it brings to them, while others are rewarded in L$ for the fruit of the knowledge they gain and the natural gifts they possess.

In my opinion, all of this is ethically neutral--so far. Being spatially gifted and familiar with SL's building mechanisms, a person could either design a charming cottage or a giant penis. One then has further choices as to what to do with said cottage/penis. It is what one chooses to do that has an ethical dimension, not simply "building with prims."

Being artistic and having a mastery of certain software applications, one can design some quite clever textures and upload them into Our Life, Our Imagination. They could upload just the rock wall texture someone's been looking for--or some obscene poster with which to harass a neighbor. It is what one chooses to do that has an ethical dimension, not simply "designing textures."

Knowing what land is worth and what kinds of builds are attractive is valuable knowledge. One can purchase a sim, build a themed development, and sell the results to an eager public, or one can purchase land momentarily set for L$1 by the naive owner trying to transfer it to a friend, change the price in a way that earns a ginormous profit, and resell it. It is what one chooses to do that has an ethical dimension, not simply "buying and selling land."

Understanding the intricacies of LibSL, C++, and the open-source viewer client is a great advantage. With these abilities, one can identify and fix bugs, make usability improvements, give doors the ability to open and airplanes the ability to fly, scan what lies behind people's locked doors and banlines, eavesdrop on conversations on the other side of the sim, change the price of land in a split second between the time "buy land" is clicked and the time the "confirm" button is clicked, etc. It is what one chooses to do that has an ethical dimension, not simply "writing scripts."

Some of these scripts, when used to control one's own avatar, are known as "bots." They allow one to do the same things without paying attention to the computer as one may do while seated at the keyboard pressing all the buttons in the usual way: look at stuff, read information about the stuff, move around, search land, buy and sell land or items, reply when asked "are you sure?" and so on. I believe I've already demonstrated that such actions, in themselves, are neutral; it is what particular buttons are pressed, and in what particular circumstances, that potentially make an action "good" or "bad." So with bots; I have no beef with people who want to automate "good" or "neutral" actions, and for those who choose to automate "bad" actions it's not the automating that I have a problem with--it's the bad action itself.

I want more bots. Bots can make our lives better, they can help us have more fun. I just don't want griefing and exploiting--actions that can happen with or without bots. Some people see Copybot and say, "Ban bots!" I say, "Ban copying!" Some people see Landbot and say, "Ban bots!" I say...well, a bunch of complicated stuff like "Don't sell land for L$1," "Fix the land transactions so if the details change after viewing the confirmation window you don't end up buying the land under different circumstances," "Don't take advantage of other people's mistakes," etc.

Where?

When I looked for then I couldn't find them and was told by an owner you had to be "one of the boys" to purchase one.

Here:

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Source_archive

And here too:

http://www.libsecondlife.org/wiki/Main_Page

You just need a couple of years of formal training preferably 4 in a decent university and then, say, a decade or so of casual programming in your spare time plus a good imagination, artistic mind and highly developed problem solving skills. Then you simply need to put in 20 or 30 hours of solid work and you too will have a basic functional bot. Of course, you'll need to work on it constantly, say another 50 hours before it's crash proof and resilient enough to run unattended and then 1 or 2 hours every week to maintain and update it in the face of regular updates to Second Life.

You just need a couple of years of formal training preferably 4 in a decent university and then, say, a decade or so of casual programming in your spare time plus a good imagination, artistic mind and highly developed problem solving skills. Then you simply need to put in 20 or 30 hours of solid work and you too will have a basic functional bot. Of course, you'll need to work on it constantly, say another 50 hours before it's crash proof and resilient enough to run unattended and then 1 or 2 hours every week to maintain and update it in the face of regular updates to Second Life.



Not everything in life is purchased.

You two seem to be looking for anything negative about ESC posted anywhere and then you pounce like rabid Chihuahuas. Many members of the SL community agree that the ESC Big Brother Bot is bad. He is not trolling by stating this.

Many may, it a) doesn't make them right and b) not everyone agree with them.

(previous reply deleted)

ESC can defend themselves if they think it's worth their bother.

The last line of the OP was a pre-emptive bash against me.

If you think otherwise, look up some of Har's posts targeted at me.

He calls what I do "mind-f***ing". Fine. It's a fitting response what I consider is his propaganda, specifically as in this definition of it (from wikipedia):

"Propaganda is a type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people. Often, instead of impartially providing information, propaganda can be deliberately misleading, or use fallacies, which, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid. Propaganda techniques include: patriotic flag-waving, glittering generalities, intentional vagueness, oversimplification of complex issues, rationalization, introducing unrelated red herring issues, using appealing, simple slogans, stereotyping, testimonials from authority figures or celebrities, unstated assumptions, and encouraging readers or viewers to "jump on the bandwagon" of a particular ideology."

So, chihuahuas aside (and, bladyblue, THANKS for that simile - witty, vivid and delightfully apt : D), does anybody have any actual working examples to report of bots going about in SL doing their thing and not actually harming anyone? Maybe even contributing to the general good? Might be useful to examine actual cases.

Good, here seems to be one useful example, though it is a specialized type of "bot" that most people might not think of when considering this category. Nevertheless, automation can be positive, and in this case was - especially if you are a fan of the band involved. This is the reason I asked for examples - nobody in the world would have thought of this except John Hurliman, and there could be others.

Any more?

Nope. Go ahead and come to your conclusion that bots are the spawn of the devil.

Thanks for the positive contribution. Now please take your compulsion to provoke a flame war to some other forum. I am told there are several where such behavior is considered the norm.

It is not appropriate or useful here.

Should I conclude you have no other examples? If you do find any, please present them.

[straps on titanium-steel alloy ankle-guards protecting against rabid chihuahuas.]

Have you even bothered to look for yourself?

Google: bots secondlife innovative

http://dominounlimited.blogspot.com/search/label/Sametime%20bot

http://www.pandorabots.com/botmaster/en/home

http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/LynnHershman/499

...

And likely several more if you get creative with search terms.

And... rather ballsy of you to accuse Zaphod of misconduct when you included profanity in your OP. Kindly leave the double standard at home.

Bots arent demonspawn.

They are tools used by the technically astute, often without consideration or even concern to Social Ramifications.

Some are used to automate land swooping which unautomated was a slimy practice, automated its slimy on meth.

Since Linden Labs has decided Bots are beneficial they should have a plan in place for their integration into the Second Life Community.

Instead they have chosen a hands off, ad hoc, willy nilly control style that will earn them a black eye when the number of bots blossoms out of control.

Im still trying to figure out how I ban 500 search/spy/crawl/naval contemplating bots. Or even find out the names of all the bots I should be able to avoid if I CHOOSE to.

Basically Bots would be fine if ALL the bot makers and bot users had integrity. Too bad so many have shown they dont.

Entire post quoted due to laziness.

Colette, you hit the highest nail right on the head here. It isn't the bot, it's the author and the operator, and the integrity of each, that matters.