Bots

Mark Sample

While digital humanities encases a wide variety of literary works, some of the most interesting objects are robots, or bots, that are created with the intention of providing insight into the shear capabilities that these devices have. To understand their capabilities, one must first truly understand what a bot is. As Mark Sample, professor of digital studies at Davidson College explains in his article “A protest bot is a bot so specific you can’t mistake it for bullshit”, “Bots are small automated programs that index websites, edit Wikipedia entries, spam users, scrape data from pages, launch denial of service attacks, and other assorted activities, both mundane and nefarious.” To further understand bots, Wikipedia also describe bots as an automated system that is designed to perform a specific task online, called scripts, which are orders given to the bot through coding. 
   
     Some of the reasons that make bots unique is the unending questions that surround them. For instance, because bots have many purposes, including to generate spam, audiences are left to wonder whether or not the bot’s work has any meaning, which those audiences would decide for their own, if the find anything of value in the works. Moreover, another reason that bots are questioned, is because of the inability to give authorship to one specific person or tool. Does the computer assume ownership because the code for the bot was created on it? Is ownership given to the author who created the code? Or is ownership given to the platform that hosts the bot? It is up to the viewer to decide and answer these questions for themselves, which leads viewers to have different reactions to the bots and the works that they view.

Another reason that make bots interesting, is the fact that they are seen all over the world, even right in your pocket. Probably one of the most well-known bots is Siri, a voice activated bot that communicates with its users, who have devices through Apple. Primarily seen as a “chatterbot,” Siri is able to conduct a conversation with a human, In addition, because Siri is a “chatterbot,” it is able to replicate human intelligence, designed to understand context, which then allows it to answer whatever questions a user might have, to the best of its ability.

While bots are a very useful tool, as seen through the use and success of Siri, bots also have a history of being used for more nefarious purposes. For instance, some of the malicious purposes bots are used for are a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack or spam attack websites, overloading their servers. These types of cyber crimes have been utilized by hacker organizations like anonymous or DERP who have orchestrated them as a form of vigilante justice.

Besides Siri, another type of bot that has been widely created are Twitter bots. As the Wikipedia page describing Twitter bots expresses, a twitter bot can be described as a computer program that takes control of the social media site Twitter, to automatically create or tweet posts or follow other Twitter users. Through their code, Twitter bots can be set up in such a way that they will respond to other people's posts in a comical way, tweeting posts that have little meaning, or in a way that is helpful, tweeting informative posts about events that occurring in everyday life, as seen in the Twitter bot @EarthquakesSF, which as Wikipedia states, “tweets about earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Area as they happen using real-time seismographic information.”As Sample further tells in his article, most Twitter bots are mostly spam, however a small number of them are “creative endeavors,” generating tweets that may be topical, data-based, cumulative, oppositional, or uncanny. Throughout his article Sample writes about various examples of Twitter bots that encase one or more of these aspect, even describing some of his own Twitter bots that he originally created.

Specifically, one of the Twitter bots that Sample created and mentions in his article, is the bot @NRA_Tally, which was created to, in a sense, make the NRA look bad. For example,  this account was created as a form of anger towards the NRA, protesting the false claim that guns don’t kill people. Due to this, @NRA_Tally is considered to be a protest bot.

As shown throughout its various tweets, this bot was used to create a repetition of Twitter posts exemplifying U.S. historical shootings that have occurred in years past. In addition to showing where the shooting occurred, the bot also digs deeper by describing and supporting the claims with specific details and numerical data. Some of these details and numbers include items such as the caliber and brand of the weapon used, the number of casualties, and the location of the shooting. To conclude each of these Tweets, the bot also follows up each statement with an NRA response to the situation. The response selected from the bots database typically shows the NRA coming up with different reasons for the shooting besides the guns, or changing the subject completely to something else occurring within the NRA. Furthermore, it is important to note that all information produced by this bot comes from a number of reliable sources, such as press releases and historical recordings, rendering it impossible to consider any of the information exemplified in the tweets, as bullshit. Ultimately, with all of these elements included, the bot creates a sense of seriousness and realism that really impacts the reader as they browse through @NRA_Tally’s multiple posts. With an understanding of the @NRA_Tally bot, it can be noted that very few people actually follow this Twitter account. This may be due to the specific feeling of unease created by these posts(as shown in the image pictured above) or because of concerns relating to the government tracking those who follow such accounts. Additionally, this feeling of unease created by the bot is the overall intended goal. @NRA_Tally presents information that cannot be ignored or explained by gun supporters. Finally, the tweets present realistic facts that can intimidate and make gun owners and organizations, such as the NRA, feel guilty,leading them to see that these malicious crimes are preventable, but that they are too stubborn to do anything about it, because they are so closely and strongly tied to guns and their right to bear arms. Above all, bots are an unique work that can be found in the field of digital humanities. While Sample and Wikipedia explain bots’ various capabilities, even if its just to create spam, many bots, like Siri or Twitter bots are created to help users better understand and answer questions about the world around them. In the end after looking at and interacting with different bots, it is up to the viewer to decide who has ownership of the work, whether it is the computer, the author of the code, the bot itself, or the platform it is displayed through. Furthermore, along with the ownship of the bot and it's work, it is also up to the viewer to decide if a bot's work has any meaning at all, finding valuing in even the simplest or most oppositional works, as shown in @NRA_Tally, or finding little to no value at all, just seeing it as another form of spam.