What is a Bot?
A bot is a script or program that performs (often repetitive) tasks on the Internet. While humans need sleep or get bored, bots can work tirelessly at a single task or even a series of tasks.
There are bots that humans would rarely interact with, such as Google’s web crawling robot, Googlebot. This bot browses the web and sends that information back to Google, which then indexes these results so they can appear when performing a Google search. This makes zettabytes worth of data more accessible to the average person.
Other types of bots are a nuisance or even malicious. A botnet is a network of computers infected with malicious software that can be used to send out spam messages, perform DDOS attacks, or phishing attacks. These cybersecurity concerns are a constant threat to any individual or entity using Internet.
While these two examples span the full spectrum from “extremely useful” to “extremely harmful,” there are bots that live in more of a gray area. There are “auction sniping” bots that some users will employ on auction websites like eBay to try to outbid another user without the other user having a chance to raise their bid. This is beneficial to the person who wins an auction without any bidding competition, but harmful to other bidders, the seller, and auction website itself. There are also bots that are play video games or place bets on online gambling websites, often with the purpose of earning money for its creator. Or there are bots that are just designed to be fun to talk to (have you ever asked Siri or Cortana to tell you a joke?).
Twitter Bots
And that brings us to Twitter bots. Twitter has allowed their social media platform to be a great place to experiment with bots. As anyone who has used it will know, Twitter has its share of annoying or even malicious spambots. However, there are other bots that are useful, entertaining, or even have the potential to save lives. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
This bot tweets the strength and location of earthquakes stronger than a 5.0 on the Richter scale as they happen.
This bot tweets pictures of items in archives of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. Many museums have a much larger collection than what is has space to display in public exhibits, so this bot is a way for the museum to share works of art with the public that would otherwise be hidden away in their archives.
This bot takes results from the United States census and transforms anonymous data for one individual into a brief story or snapshot of the individual’s life. The results breathe life into otherwise sterile data, and can often leave the reader with a feeling of heavy sadness.
This bot mashes up two unrelated newspaper headlines, often with interesting or comical results.
This bot automatically posts images of the Earth from the DSCOVR spacecraft.
Creating Your Own Twitter Bot
Bots like these have the potential to enrich the experience of Twitter users, and can even save lives. For example, the NWS Tsunami Alerts bot can help residents in coastal areas know when they should get to higher ground to avoid a tsunami.
Do you have an idea for your own Twitter bot that would be entertaining, useful, or innovative? As long the bot doesn’t do something immoral, unethical, or break Twitter’s Automation Rules, then you should create it! My next post will help you create your very first Twitter bot.
Discussion Questions
- What is a bot?
- Are bots a computing innovation? Why or why not?
- What are some examples of bots that were not featured in this post?
- Think of a particular example of a bot. What is a beneficial or harmful effect that this bot can have on society, the economy, or culture?
- Again, think of a particular example of a bot. What is one data storage, privacy, or security concern relevant to this bot?
