Automated club chat?

Has anyone ever had an evening like this?

When I arrived the DJ greeted me. I said hello, walked to the dance floor, started dancing. The place was chatty. Lots of people here, but still more chat than usual. But...it doesn't quite make sense. The greetings of new arrivals are going pretty well, but poeple are being bid good night who haven't announced they're leaving. And they don't leave. Okay, maybe I missed some of the conversation, but...it keeps happening.

The general banter? It's about lag, mostly. Pretty normal, except...disconnected. Lots of observations and smarty comments, but no real conversation. I make a couple amusing comments and...am ignored. Okay, no biggie. It happens.

Some of the chat seems to be connected conversation: A says something, B comments on it, A comments again, except...it's just...off. There's nothing at all intelligent being said, and the timing is just too perfect. Nobody is suddenly unresponsive, nobody apologizes for being AFK, nobody makes any radical changes in topic...it's just too...perfect. But dumb. And there are comments that seem to come completely from left field. Nobody asks of those speakers what the hell they're talking about.

I say a few totally nonsensical things. Nobody notices.

After about twenty minutes one of the dancers greets me. I say hello. There seems to be just two variations on the greetings; one seems to be a typo. I muse to myself that if someone has gone to the trouble of adding imperfection into an automated greeter they could use some more variation.

My comments now start to sound like one side of a conversation, as if I'm typing into the wrong window. I'm making sense, but totally off-topic, and in longer sentences than everyone else. Nobody notices.

I recognize one of the names being bid good night, and scroll up to find that yes, that person was bid good night a while ago. This time she does say good night and leave, but...how did they know she was leaving? The greetings are still going better than the farewels.

Someone asks a question, and both me and the DJ answer. The DJ is acknowledged; I am not. No biggie, it happens.

I'm back to nonsensical comments. Eventually the dancer who greeted me seems to notice and comments on something I've said. I answer. No return. At this point I've been typing stupid crap into chat for an hour and someone finally noticed.

Enter someone new behind me. Now surely I'll hear the whole conversation between her and the staff, right? She asks a question and...is ignored. I answer. She loggs off. I make a comment about her question and...am ignored.

My commentary is now perfect-sense observations, but still off-topic. Nobody asks what the hell I'm talking about or who I'm talking to.

The woman behind me returns. She asks the same question she did before and...oh! She's everyone's bestest buddy! Perfectly paced, nonsensical conversation follows. Sprinkle in a few from-leftfield comments. Eventually she announces she has to leave, but...did I miss some of it? What an awkward sign-off. But at least the farewels match the leaving this time.

I say good night, but intentionally mis-spell it. Nobody notices.

This is a club that's been around a while. For the last year they've struggled to get a dozen or so people. Lately they've had 40 or more, regularly. It had occured to me that they might have done that with bots, so maybe I was just seeing what I had imagined I might see, but...that was just too weird.

Anyone else ever wonder if this is possible?

how very strange!, from what you have written, it would sound like automated chat.
I would be interested to check this place out!
Do they just repeat everything they are saying in a cycle? How bizzare.

and this is sl, so it probably wouldn't surprise me if someone has done this..

This type of thing really fascinates me for some crazy reason and now you've got me very curious. Would you be willing to send me the LM in PM or send an IM in world?

Some places have used bots to fake traffic and received a lot of publicity here and I suppose elsewhere.

This might be a way to fake the traffic and hope to escape being caught and having people go on and on about it with pictures of aerial or underground or underwater avatar clumps.

It might be someone trying out an entry into a group Turing test.

would you mind dropping me a notecard on the landmark ?
ill use my bot detector to verify this.
im online 24/7 but not always at the terminal.
thanks.

How bizzare, and sad if they're bots. Did you check their profiles? Did it look "normal" to you?

I agree - this sounds truly fascinating. Imagine if there were 20 000 of these bots randomly TPing around SL and automatically "interacting" with people, speaking gibberish, etc. It is sort of Bladerunneresque... sounds like a cool project (but not on the 20 000 scale, just one would do).

I'd love the lm in an IM here or inworld as well, please

Hmmmm...a Cartel field trip over there could be fun!

Okay, now you've got ME curious as hell. Bot detector? How does it work? And, more important, how can I get one?

No, the conversation was not gibberish. Most of it made sense, but there was nothing intelligent said in the hour and fifty minutes I was there, and the conversation was too perfectly paced and involved some out-of-order things (bidding people farewel though they hadn't yet announced they were leaving) and some from-left-field comments that nobody was curious about. The range of conversation was very limited. And, of course, nothing I said was responded to. On further reflection, I also don't recall any of the gesture flooding I'd expect to occasionally happen. I'll have to review the chat log and see if my perception changes, or if I find anything I missed.

No, the conversation did not repeat itself. If they were bots they were working from bits of recorded or fabricated conversation, not individual statements, and there was enough of it that it didn't repeat in the time I was there. If I monitor it long enough, though, I'm sure I'd find some repeats. If they were bots.

I did think of Turing, and one of my comments to chat mentioned Turing. I thought if the bot author was present he'd be compelled to make me feel like I was talking to humans, but that didn't happen.

I looked at a lot of profiles and the only thing odd I found was that almost everyone was "payment info on file". If they were bots someone went to a lot of trouble. Of lesser interest was that even the very new ones belonged to a bunch of groups. Except a couple that were a year old, said they liked clubbing, but belonged to few or no groups. A few were similar in less tangible ways, like the format. I found a couple that were dancing near each other with the same creation date and something else odd about their profiles but I don't remember what it was. Few of them had the club in their picks. Again, if they were bots someone carefully engineered them to not look like bots.

I saw no goofy avatars, and few exceptional ones. Everyone was wearing prim hair and attachments, but I saw nothing really cool. There were no complete newbie avatars, and few nearly-newbie. Only one person, one of the nearly newbies, walked near me. He was the one that asked a question that both I and the DJ answered. I thought he was human, but then again his question was a perfect opportunity for the club, and he thanked the DJ for the answer but not me. Maybe human, maybe scripted. There were no particle poofers. I think I saw particles once all evening.

I'm sure there were humans present. I just don't know how many.

I'd like to know how that bot detector works. Elite, IM me if you want to share info. I have a hacked client that collects data that I think could be used to detect bots, but I would have had to relog to run it. And I can also think of ways to defeat detection. This post contains hints on how to defeat detection

Sorry, I will not give anyone a landmark until I'm more certain this is what's happening. I've essentially accused a club owner and his patrons of failing a Turing test, and that's not high praise

Now that's just creepy. It's like you went into an uncanny valley of conversation.

I want to go this sounds just wild LM please....

Is this the SL branch of the Twilight Zone? Sounds definitely intriguing (and I normally shun clubs).

May I trouble you for the landmark, please?

omg, this story is great on soo many levels.

Even if it is all bots, now that this is out, it'll be packed with peopel who just want to watch, or try and trip the bots up.

...runs off giggling

Its funny because I was thinking the same thing about another club I have been to. Only it was a lot less sophisticated, just 60-70 well dressed AVs standing around silently, as if in IMs but certainly not appearing as your normal bot. If it's been refined to the point where they have them talking like that, it would certainly be notable.

/me wonders who spiked Anya's eggnog with absinthe...

mind if i get an lm to the place? i too am getting more curious XD

One way to have bots emit somewhat realistic chat woud be to use chat repeaters. So a bot a club A would say something picked up by a bot or a scripted object at club B.