Life:Connected | 9 June 2014
How online 'chatbots' are already tricking you
By Chris Baraniuk

Intelligent machines that can pass for humans have long been dreamed of, but as Chris Baraniuk argues, they’re already among us.

...There are certainly plenty of them out there. Although most people think of the web as a place primarily frequented by humans, the reality turns out to be quite different. A recent report found that 61.5% of internet traffic is generated by automated programs called bots....

...The ramifications of astroturfing are in fact so serious that the US Department of Defense has jointly funded research into software which can determine whether a Twitter account is run by a bot. The application, called BotOrNot, is available publicly online and provides a predictive analysis based on account activity and tweet semantics which suggest whether the account operator is likely to be a human or a bot...."

https://www.bbc.com/future/story/2014060...aign=newsletter

Looks like TM's true identity has been found out....



...he's a bot.