tangentbot

If you know me, you probably know how much I love Twitter. Also, a lot of you read Slashdot, so you probably saw this story about how human-like bots have become. Background for context.

I really like the ideas of artificial intelligence, what exactly constitutes sentience and sapience, and what makes us human. I just finished watching Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex (for the third time) and it digs into those concepts quite a bit with the Tachikomas. Since then, I’ve been seeing stories crop up about mind-reading via MRI scans,  neural interfaces for computers, and tons of other cyberpunkish bits here and there.

This is my favorite one, though. A Japanese blogger’s two closest friends on Twitter turn out to be bots.

Did you read it? Well go read it! It’s so awesome! Although, I must admit, I feel kind of sorry for coconutsfine. I’m hoping he continues to talk to the bots. I’m hoping somebody I follow is really a bot.  Skynet, srsly.

Here’s a cool chatterbot directory, chatbots.org. There’s also tons of info about bots and AI over at Wikipedia.