

Weavrs - autonomous Twitter bots - jaxonrice
http://www.weavrs.com

======
bazzargh
That site got a fair bit of press (and not in a good way) after they set up
one of those bots pretending to be the author Jon Ronson. Jon interviewed the
people behind it, judge them for yourself:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/mar/27/jo...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/mar/27/jon-
ronson-spambot-video)

~~~
smcl
Not sure if it's just me, but those guys come across as extremely unlikeable
in that video. I don't get how they seem oblivious to why Jon is upset about
it, and even at one point one gets (faux?) annoyed that real Jon is telling
people following fake Jon to stop doing so.

~~~
brackin
The central guy comes across as a total psychopath. Twisting everything he
says in a strange way. Almost saying the fact that he uses his name on Twitter
makes him self-obsesed. I've just looked at my list of @replies and the last
ten are all users using their real names.

They have some of the most absolutely weakest arguments I've ever heard yet
get away with it. It's as if they don't care if the thousands watching the
video aren't convinced at all but if they can annoy Jon they have succeeded.

He says the reason he annoys people by making these accounts is because "I
want to understand the algorithms that are used by wall street". These aren't
really 'robots', they're just scraping wikipedia and pushing out terms in
tweets it believes are relevant, which this has shown aren't.

"I don't know how you relate to the economic collapse". I don't understand
this guy, I don't know if they're acting but if they're serious then I'm
worried.

~~~
ecocentrik
They were just making fun of Jon Ronson. I think their arguments hold up just
enough to make Jon's request to kill the bot sound a little absurd. That seems
to be their only objective in the video. I thought the bit about trading
algorithms and how it relates to what they're doing was a little over the top.
The analogy to photography made by the guy on the left at the end of the video
was genius.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum>

------
treelovinhippie
Oh damn guys, this is epic. I see what you're doing here. User-generated bots
with unique personalities. Generate enough and put them into the wild that is
twitter, and you'll quickly find what algorithms are best at "befriending"
most people.

I'd always predicted pure algorithmic AI would emerge only after we'd stitched
together the human hiveAI (a small 7 billion neruons), but it may just grow
with it.

Here's one (of many) thoughts: imagine generating a twitter bot (sorry, weavr)
directly from your search and/or browsing history...

------
sequoia
Everything about this seems stupid. In the video bazzargh posted these guys
come off as absolute pricks, oozing with smugness and condescension and
completely devoid of empathy. They use (steal) someone's identity (name +
pic), the person asks them nicely to stop and they insult and ridicule him:
"You'd like to kill these algorithms; you feel threatened in some way." These
guys have such a laughably asinine narrative, I can't believe they deliver it
with an (almost) straight face. Why didn't the creators use their own
identities? Why didn't they stop using Ronson's when it became clear it was
irritating him?

To the software output: Maybe I'll eat my words but it seems to be complete
garbage. Basically boilerplate, randomly generated spam. I typed "wine" into
the "find weavers" box and picked the top result: a weaver/spambot called "In
Vino Veritas" ( _in wine, truth_ ) with a wine glass as an avatar. This should
be a good match for wine, I figured! I was asked if I'd like to "chat" with
the bot and did so, I pitched it a softball: "What is your favorite wine?" It
came back with "I don't know much about wines but I prefer those from
California." "In Vino Veritas" doesn't know much about wine? Not exactly
crushing the Turing test here... <http://screencast.com/t/fKGzERNr>

I looked at the bot's profile page and it had a post "I'm dreaming something
about #proof and #evidence." In the interview, Ronson says that the bot posted
'Dreaming about #time and #cock,' almost the exact same string with the
hashtags substituted.

    
    
        printf("Dreaming of %s and %s", x, y);
    

And we're supposed to regard this as what, cutting edge AI? Winebot that can't
say anything about wine, bots feeding random values into preformed strings and
tweeting them, taking a word from some interaction (e.g. "wine"), pulling a
pic from google and posting to tumblr... nothing here is remotely interesting
or new. If the creators weren't such class-a assholes I'd be more polite in my
assessment, but as they can't be bothered to care about how their actions
affect others, I don't feel the need to. They've done their controversy-color-
by-numbers thing and got their publicity, the product (?) is worthless, the
sooner their 15 minutes passes the better.

~~~
evanlivingston
I don't think anyone is bragging about the algorithms here. No one claims it
passes the Turing test. The AI isn't the real point. Furthermore, since when
does someone's name + picture pass as their identitym That's exactly what this
trio is pointing out. After doing some research, it appears that these guys in
the video are not programmers, but artists and professors.
<http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/projects-archive/>
[http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxManchester-Dan-OHara-
Skeu...](http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxManchester-Dan-OHara-Skeuom)
<http://www.danohara.co.uk/cv.html>

If we continue this critique, can we stop judging the quality of their
algorithms (which they're probably not interested in) and instead critique the
artistic value of emulating human online behavior?

~~~
sequoia
"can we stop judging the quality of their algorithms (which they're probably
not interested in) and instead critique the artistic value of emulating human
online behavior?"

I actually addressed this first, before the software output. They are being
jerks and not demonstrating anything interesting. Please tell me: what is the
artistic value?

'Thru this work we now know it's possible to piss people off by putting their
name and picture on a spambot.' Is this it? Don't get me wrong, I think
creative, high quality trolling can be considered art in its highest form (see
Andy Kauffman, Sacha Baron Cohen, 4chan at its best, etc.) but simply slapping
someone's name on a spambot is uninteresting, unoriginal, childish, and above
all, uncreative. It provokes no thoughts beyond "wow, these guys sure are
jerks."

For what it's worth the creators mention "the algorithm" constantly in their
interview and seem to ascribe it some value, so I think it's a fair subject of
discussion & critique.

~~~
evanlivingston
I'm still a little caught up in the "identity theft" thing. Names and
appearances are not the limits of one's identity. If this were the case,
halloween would be the criminal's holiday. The trio, perhaps inadvertently,
point out a fundamental flaw with both twitter and how the user approaches it.
If someone cannot differentiate themselves from a bot spitting out ("dreaming
of %x and %y", x, y) then is there really an identity to steal? This man is
fighting for his unique right to present 140 characters, a string of
characters (his name) next to 5329 pixels captured at one specific moment in
his life, all grouped together? By what virtue does he own those rights?

~~~
novalis
Don't get caught up to the point you write about it with a damage control
approach.

"If someone cannot differentiate themselves from a bot spitting out ("dreaming
of %x and %y", x, y) then is there really an identity to steal?"

Is this turning to some introduction to awkward online eugenics or what... You
don't know that impersonation isn't something a creative commons license on a
photo from wikipedia was made for ? Do they have the right to create a
substitutive persona to establish contacts with others ? Was there a change to
the law and no one sent the memo or something... Differentiation is intrinsic
to identity, you don't have to display it like a onus. What are you on about ?
So a bot with your name on it, that would tweet "comments" on the weather and
caviar, would render you non existant, voiding of the hability to contest
impersonation ? That just has that touch of the same non sensical dribble that
funnyjunk lawyer has, where are you going with that.

Natural rights cease because someone made a bot ? Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Hold
the internet presses people.

"By what virtue does he own those rights?"

Maybe because when he signed up for the service he had those rights then and
didn't give them away. Yeah, probably because of that. People accept terms of
service when signing up to online services by their own predisposition and
free will. They enter a contract, see where this is going. Bots that
impersonate people that accept terms of service don't have precedence just
because some pseudo experimental trio thought it would be a good project. They
don't own his rights. That is the framing that causes the problem and why they
are at fault when trying to turn the discussion to some indefensible position.
They failed miserably at it.

That halloween criminal's holiday day... honestly, if you had to go make an
account just to sprinkle this conversation with that piece of golden web
dust/insight, you should have saved yourself the trouble. Honestly there are
other places for that sort of thing. In the end it is really funny how people
botching a project make this sort of thing pop up. Had a laught, but like a
little britain comedy series used to state: "Computer says no."

~~~
evanlivingston
@novalis, your points are a little unclear. I am unclear what "Differentiation
is intrinsic to identity" means. A bot with my name and image would not render
me non-existent, but it might seriously compromise my online identity. I view
that as a problem. I check a radio box to some terms of service when creating
an online profile, and so must a bot. But because I _understand_ the words
does that mean I am more protected than the bot? They don't own his rights,
but does the human? The terms of service are just words, which describe laws
and agreements humans made. These are not unbreakable, infallible laws.
Furthermore, the bot is certainly not subject to these laws, perhaps the
creators are. But then again, is a mother responsible for the crimes of its
child. I realize this metaphor does not hold up ( the trio designed the bot to
be nefarious by nature ).

They did not fail miserably. They seriously perturbed the man whose identity
the bot assumed because his identity weak in the first place. The mere fact
that the man was perturbed I think means a victory for the trio. The online
(crappy) bot gives the man a run for his a run for his money, and that's
disconcerting. If the bot was so ineffective, or the project so pointless, why
then is it such a problem that the bot impersonates another human. What's
_really_ the problem here? What are we all upset about? Once again, If I
pretend to be Steve Jobs, where is the problem. If I pretend to be no name
author, where is the problem? If a bot dresses up and pretends to be a no name
author, what infraction is it making?

------
veverkap
I didn't like that the weavr bot posted my physical address. I thought giving
access to my location would allow it to work in my city, not my actual
address. And there is no way to delete that first post.

~~~
yarrel
Did you set it as the Weavr's home address? Change it, and the original
address will soon be out of sight and out of mind as the Weavr posts more.

~~~
veverkap
No, I went to the page to create a weaver and it asked me for my physical
location. I wasn't informed that it would be used in that way and I am given
no way of deleting that information. Being out of sight and out of mind isn't
really good enough.

~~~
yarrel
Please contact support and they'll see what they can do -

<https://getsatisfaction.com/philterphactory>

------
Toenex
I'd like to think these things would work because the AI is so smart that they
make an intelligent contribution to twitter. Sadly I suspect they might work
because it won't take much to improve upon the average tweet.

------
flavien_bessede
Your homepage needs some work, I'm still unclear on what Weavrs is.

~~~
zeroinfluencer
Agreed - but we're still unsure what they are too. That's why we develop with
them.

~~~
daemon13
Double stealth or triple stealth?

~~~
zeroinfluencer
"Triple blind testing" as KK would say.
[http://longnow.org/seminars/02006/mar/10/long-term-trends-
in...](http://longnow.org/seminars/02006/mar/10/long-term-trends-in-the-
scientific-method/)

Triple-blind experiments will emerge through massive non-invasive statistical
data collection— no one, not the subjects or the experimenters, will realize
an experiment was going on until later. (In the Q&A, one questioner predicted
the coming of the zero-author paper, generated wholly by computers.)

------
Tichy
Hm, I just realized that I don't like to log in somewhere with my Google
account. Too much vital stuff depends on it, and if a site forwards me to a
Google login prompt there is always the danger of phishing. Couldn't you
provide a classic sign up form? Granted, I may be the last person on earth to
use those...

Also, why not sign in with Twitter (though I'd really prefer an independent
sign up form)?

~~~
zeroinfluencer
Hello. We didn't want to put people through a sign-up process AND then then
ask them to fill out Weavrs profiles, so we opted for a 3rd party
authentication. If we had used Twitter for Auth, then it becomes very
confusing. There's Twitter accounts for Weavrs and for the User. If we had
used Facebook, then people get really worried about privacy and Weavrs are not
private beings. Nothing gets pulled from your Google account - just your
username which you can change in Weavrs.

~~~
pnzi
Why would using Twitter for authentication be confusing? I think it'd be
great.

------
Swizec
At first I wasn't sure what to use this for, but as soon as I saw a bot's
homepage (<http://lojze.weavrs.info/#/view/grid/>) it dawned on me that this
is the best way to get cool recommendations for stuff online.

At least I think you could be able to tune a bot so it suggests exactly the
things you'd like to read.

~~~
zeroinfluencer
You can also add new functionality from the Prosthetic Store.
<http://prosthetics.weavrs.com/>

or roll your own <http://developer.weavrs.com/>

