To Know a Bot Ask a Bot
By Bob Kaehms
The best way to learn about bots and
agents on the Internet is to search for them yourself. Use one of the search engines whose results are the by-product of bot labor.
"Bot, what do you know about bots and agents?"
Your search, "Bot, what do you know
about bots and agents?" did not match any documents in this database. Make sure all words are spelled correctly. Try using fewer words. Try using more general keywords.
Try different keywords.
"Bots and agents."
This simplified search turned up no fewer than 235,390 results (AltaVista), 410 (Google), 389,480 (Excite), and 58,345,321 (Infoseek). With numbers like these, one could argue either that the phrase "bots and agents" is way overused, that bots are prodigious, or that bots themselves are inefficient.
My most lasting bot story is a personal one. In 1988 I spent far too much time in online chat rooms. Like a few other early network pioneers, I had become intellectually addicted to the peculiarities of the medium. You know -- pure thought traveling at a whopping 1200 baud in the form of ones and zeroes.
Along with a few others in my online
community, I had gotten too close to someone who was both intellectually gifted and
cursed by a series of personal disasters.
An astrophysicist and rape victim, our friend liked her privacy. An articulate and skilled
essayist, she loved to get into intellectual
arguments and discussions of all forms.
There's something disarming about communicating symbolically.
