bots-as-digital-infrapunctures/content/Section 3 - Bots/1-introduction.md

Title: Introduction: Bots
Slug: 01-s3-introduction
Date: 2020-11-01 12:00
Summary: What are bots?

When we say bots, we refer to software agents which automatise certain actions and can run autonomously or semi-autonomously.

The particular bots we are interested in for this online module are those that act as an interface between the digital platform and human users, or what Hepp calls communicative robots[^hepp], robots that "are defined as autonomously operating systems designed for the purpose of quasi-communication  with human beings to enable further algorithmic-based functionalities – often but not always on the basis of artificial intelligence".

In this section, we will introduce Darius Kazemi, a computer programmer and artist, and Andreas Hepp, a professor of media and communications.

[^hepp]: Hepp, Andreas. "Artificial companions, social bots and work bots: communicative robots as research objects of media and communication studies"
*Media, Culture & Society* Volume 42 (2020): 1410-1426. <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0163443720916412>