diff --git a/content/Section 3 - Bots/1-introduction.md b/content/Section 3 - Bots/1-introduction.md index dd781c9..d9c2a03 100644 --- a/content/Section 3 - Bots/1-introduction.md +++ b/content/Section 3 - Bots/1-introduction.md @@ -1,5 +1,13 @@ Title: Introduction: Bots Slug: 01-s3-introduction Date: 2020-11-01 12:00 -Summary: +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, computer programmer and artist, and Andreas Hepp, professor of media and communications. + + +[^hepp]: Artificial companions, social bots and work bots: communicative robots as research objects of media and communication studies, diff --git a/content/Section 3 - Bots/10-theoretical-perspectives-on-bots.md b/content/Section 3 - Bots/10-theoretical-perspectives-on-bots.md index c092053..f90b933 100644 --- a/content/Section 3 - Bots/10-theoretical-perspectives-on-bots.md +++ b/content/Section 3 - Bots/10-theoretical-perspectives-on-bots.md @@ -1,13 +1,3 @@ Title: Theoretical perspectives on Bots Slug: 10-s3-communicative-bots Date: 2020-11-01 12:10 - -Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse in libero viverra risus pulvinar congue. Sed pellentesque condimentum cursus. Quisque vestibulum ex quis tincidunt faucibus. Etiam porta nec eros quis ornare. Curabitur posuere lorem a lectus tincidunt fermentum. Nunc efficitur neque in mattis ullamcorper. Nullam aliquam nunc et elit tempor hendrerit. Proin eu erat sit amet nisl ultrices feugiat. Suspendisse dignissim ipsum sed ex porttitor molestie. Aenean elementum vitae justo eget scelerisque. Phasellus in quam vulputate, tempus libero eu, ornare tellus. Etiam sollicitudin venenatis hendrerit. Ut dolor dolor, commodo sit amet arcu eget, porttitor aliquam justo. Fusce maximus laoreet turpis sit amet molestie. Nulla facilisi. - -Curabitur ut sapien et velit rutrum laoreet. Cras ac aliquet massa. Pellentesque elementum ornare orci. Donec mattis auctor lacus, quis dignissim arcu sollicitudin sit amet. Etiam imperdiet, risus sed condimentum interdum, ante est mattis sem, a tempor mi odio eget tortor. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; Proin sed justo ac nisi aliquam efficitur nec venenatis turpis. - -Nulla pretium, purus vitae pretium porttitor, elit purus sagittis leo, ut blandit arcu nisl a metus. Nunc sit amet arcu ac magna finibus suscipit. Sed malesuada sem arcu, id egestas risus pharetra at. Sed sed pulvinar massa, at ornare odio. Donec quis magna sed turpis rhoncus dignissim. Aenean scelerisque sapien nec interdum suscipit. Donec sit amet tincidunt odio, in fermentum eros. Morbi varius augue nulla. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed sit amet ligula hendrerit nisl posuere venenatis placerat quis sem. Phasellus in iaculis urna. Etiam mollis arcu eget dui volutpat molestie. Pellentesque sodales leo nec mi interdum interdum. Proin at gravida ante. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. - -Donec non massa sapien. Aenean ligula lectus, iaculis ut tempus quis, scelerisque sit amet dui. Donec varius dui sed elit consectetur rhoncus non in leo. Quisque feugiat lobortis magna, eu auctor nisi sodales et. Fusce nec iaculis arcu. Morbi placerat pellentesque felis sed eleifend. Vivamus consectetur felis fringilla urna porta aliquam. - -Nam rhoncus lacus libero, ut tincidunt lorem ultricies vel. Proin nibh neque, tempor quis nulla ac, vulputate dapibus metus. Proin rhoncus a diam quis hendrerit. Ut laoreet est id erat gravida, vitae aliquet lorem suscipit. Mauris eu tempor metus, sit amet blandit erat. Aenean viverra imperdiet orci, at condimentum nunc euismod ac. Suspendisse lectus augue, venenatis ullamcorper sollicitudin vel, venenatis vitae dui. In in velit feugiat, molestie nibh vitae, finibus elit. Nulla mattis metus eu finibus laoreet. Nullam lobortis dui ac feugiat dictum. diff --git a/content/Section 3 - Bots/2-examples.md b/content/Section 3 - Bots/2-examples.md index 015945d..7231bea 100644 --- a/content/Section 3 - Bots/2-examples.md +++ b/content/Section 3 - Bots/2-examples.md @@ -2,3 +2,5 @@ Title: Some Examples of Bots Slug: 02-s3-examples Date: 2020-11-01 12:02 Summary: + +Some examples of bots are diff --git a/content/Section 3 - Bots/4-bots-and-infrastructures.md b/content/Section 3 - Bots/4-bots-and-infrastructures.md index 451cc16..cb22874 100644 --- a/content/Section 3 - Bots/4-bots-and-infrastructures.md +++ b/content/Section 3 - Bots/4-bots-and-infrastructures.md @@ -2,3 +2,5 @@ Title: Bots and Infrastructures Slug: 04-s3-bots-and-infrastructures Date: 2020-11-01 12:04 Summary: + +How do bots relate to digital infrastructures? Let's take two examples of communication platforms that diff --git a/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/1-introduction.md b/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/1-introduction.md index 0559272..3c541d1 100644 --- a/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/1-introduction.md +++ b/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/1-introduction.md @@ -1,33 +1,12 @@ Title: Introduction: Bot Logic Slug: 01-s4-introduction Date: 2020-11-01 12:00 -Summary: +Summary: ## Bots as infrapunctures -Infrapuncture is a comely term at a moment in time when there is a lot of discussion around the political roles of automated agents in digital infrastructures. Before we move any further, perhaps a short definition of bots is necessary. When we say bots, we refer to code that automatises certain behaviours and which often acts as an interface between platform and human users. +Infrapuncture is a helpful term at a time when there is a lot of discussion around the political roles of automated agents in digital infrastructures. Many online communities engage with bots, for example the editor community of English Wikipedia, which consists of both humans and bots. The interactions between them go beyond the maintenance of Wikipedia. Instead, affective relations are formed wherein the bots are anthropomorphised. So writing a bot implies not only to understand the API (Application Programming Inferface) of the platform, what determines the possibilities of interaction, but also the social norms established within the community of editors and users of Wikipedia. And that's of course just one example. Bots act differently depending on the platform on which they are running. - -## Bot logic - -What kind of puncturing logics might bots enable in digital platforms? - -Bot logic is phrased as a response to platform logic, which Jonas Andersson Schwarz describes as "digital platforms enacting a twofold logic of micro-level technocentric control and macro-level geopolitical domination, while at the same time having a range of generative outcomes, arising between these two levels". - -'Bot logic' refers to the situational effect of bots upon a socio-technical ecology and their potential to infiltrate and co-exist with server-side conditions. Perhaps we can move our attention to these few points. When referring to platform logic in the points below, we refer to commercial infrastructures, not federated and free software platforms such as those present in the Fediverse, which have a different kind of dynamics[^theses]. - -* Where platform logic accumulates, bot logic disperses - * On commercial platforms, the engagement of users equals economic value that is translated through data capture and organisation. Metadata is extracted from users that then through pattern matching can be used to target users for advertisements. While bots can and do participate in this economy, they can also enable its sabotage. In the case of buying bot followers, this can be a means to generate noise in the collected dataset and blur the perception of the user as a set of behaviours that the platform has. -* Where platform logic centralises, bot logic fragments - * Platforms such as Twitter or Facebook use a centralised system, in the sense that the servers on which our information is stored are owned by their company. Bots, on the other hand, do not require a lot of computational power in order to run. They can be simply run from the computers of the persons who wrote the code themselves. In fact, bots really point to the materiality of the structures on which they run, as researcher Stuart Geiger also points out when he talks about 'bespoke code' as code that extends or transforms the operations of software platforms, but "runs on top of or alongside existing systems instead of being more directly integrated into and run on software-side codebases". -* Where platform logic creates distance between user and infrastructure, bot logic develops an intimate knowledge of the platform - * If we consider means of communication as means of production (Williams, 2005), there is a certain alienation that happens on commercial centralised platforms, where the user has no stake in the development of the material conditions of the platform on which they communicate. From this point of view, the making of bots implies a closeness to the platform that is indicated through the understanding of both the sociological and technical systems that determine the usership of a platform. In order to code a bot, you need to know what kind of actions are allowed and how the bot would be received by the community. -* Where platform logic reinforces habitual behaviour, bot logic encourages new habit formation - * If we think about a commercial platform as a structure or surface on which actions can take place, these actions are often predefined by the affordances of the platform. However, as was mentioned in the beginning, bots are the automation of certain actions and behaviours. To be able to define these behaviours as a user can mean an alteration of the socialities embedded in a platform. - -All of these points were written with commercial platforms in mind, however, exciting developments are happening in federated platforms such as Mastodon, where users are part of defining features and possibilities of interaction. There, the norms of the platform and the way they are codified into the technical structure are more often revised and reformulated together with the user base. This in itself creates a different space for bots, which are still active contributors in the way sociality is imagined on these platforms. However, on platforms like Mastodon, bots don't only comply to the terms of services of the API but also to the code of conduct, for example. - - diff --git a/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/2-bot-logic.md b/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/2-bot-logic.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..950bedf --- /dev/null +++ b/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/2-bot-logic.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +Title: Bot Logic +Slug: 01-s4-bot-logic +Date: 2020-11-01 12:01 +Summary: + +## Bot logic + +What kind of puncturing logics might bots enable in digital platforms? + +Bot logic is phrased as a response to platform logic, which Jonas Andersson Schwarz describes as "digital platforms enacting a twofold logic of micro-level technocentric control and macro-level geopolitical domination, while at the same time having a range of generative outcomes, arising between these two levels". + +'Bot logic' refers to the situational effect of bots upon a socio-technical ecology and their potential to infiltrate and co-exist with server-side conditions. Perhaps we can move our attention to these few points. When referring to platform logic in the points below, we refer to commercial infrastructures, not federated and free software platforms such as those present in the Fediverse, which have a different kind of dynamics[^theses]. + +* Where platform logic accumulates, bot logic disperses + + * On commercial platforms, the engagement of users equals economic value that is translated through data capture and organisation. Metadata is extracted from users that then through pattern matching can be used to target users for advertisements. While bots can and do participate in this economy, they can also enable its sabotage. In the case of buying bot followers, this can be a means to generate noise in the collected dataset and blur the perception of the user as a set of behaviours that the platform has. + +* Where platform logic centralises, bot logic fragments + + * Platforms such as Twitter or Facebook use a centralised system, in the sense that the servers on which our information is stored are owned by their company. Bots, on the other hand, do not require a lot of computational power in order to run. They can be simply run from the computers of the persons who wrote the code themselves. In fact, bots really point to the materiality of the structures on which they run, as researcher Stuart Geiger also points out when he talks about 'bespoke code' as code that extends or transforms the operations of software platforms, but "runs on top of or alongside existing systems instead of being more directly integrated into and run on software-side codebases". + +* Where platform logic creates distance between user and infrastructure, bot logic develops an intimate knowledge of the platform + + * If we consider means of communication as means of production (Williams, 2005), there is a certain alienation that happens on commercial centralised platforms, where the user has no stake in the development of the material conditions of the platform on which they communicate. From this point of view, the making of bots implies a closeness to the platform that is indicated through the understanding of both the sociological and technical systems that determine the usership of a platform. In order to code a bot, you need to know what kind of actions are allowed and how the bot would be received by the community. + +* Where platform logic reinforces habitual behaviour, bot logic encourages new habit formation + + * If we think about a commercial platform as a structure or surface on which actions can take place, these actions are often predefined by the affordances of the platform. However, as was mentioned in the beginning, bots are the automation of certain actions and behaviours. To be able to define these behaviours as a user can mean an alteration of the socialities embedded in a platform. + +All of these points were written with commercial platforms in mind, however, exciting developments are happening in federated platforms such as Mastodon, where users are part of defining features and possibilities of interaction. There, the norms of the platform and the way they are codified into the technical structure are more often revised and reformulated together with the user base. This in itself creates a different space for bots, which are still active contributors in the way sociality is imagined on these platforms. However, on platforms like Mastodon, bots don't only comply to the terms of services of the API but also to the code of conduct, for example. + + + + +API, Stuart Geiger diff --git a/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/3-bot-behaviour.md b/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/3-bot-behaviour.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aeb4531 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/Section 4 - Bot Logic/3-bot-behaviour.md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +Title: Bot behaviour +Slug: 01-s4-bot-behaviour +Date: 2020-11-01 12:02 +Summary: + +As programmable objects, bots have particular action modes. Below some examples (although this is a non-exhaustive list) + +- repetition: bot code can be run repeatedly +- condition: bot code often is written in response to a particular condition +- iteration: bot code can be run multiple times +- memory: bots can rely on a database +- tempo: bots can operate at a specific time frame as described by the programmer + +Of course, these action modes can also be "executed" by humans. It is by no means surprising that many Twitter users are mistaken for bots, or that the term itself has attained a derogatory meaning. However, an interesting phenomenon can be observed on platforms such as Twitter, where human users have adopted a type of bot behaviour to create networks of dissent and to push activist counter-narratives. Such a moment happened recently on Dutch Twitter. In response to the Black Lives Matter protests, extreme right wing politician Geert Wilders posted an image on Twitter on June 5th 2020 using the hashtag #ZwartePietMatters.[^zwartepiet] Following this post, a wave of from the k-pop community + +[^zwartepiet]: Zwarte Piet is a ...