The attack of the bots

The Web is not only populated by humans and their content. Bots have also been propagating for some time now: these are synthetic Artificial Intelligence entities that, for example in social media, make the user believe they are communicating with another human person. Bots, powered by developments in artificial intelligence, are getting better and better every year, and it is increasingly difficult to distinguish a Bot from a human person.

These purely digital Ro-Bots are a factor we now have to deal with; they can translate, for example, into:

• automated assistants (as in a car navigator or other device),
• Support chat for the purchase of goods or services, or for after-sales support
• subjects present in a video game (participating in the action instead of human players)
• conversational interfaces with voice interaction (an example is Amazon’s Alexa ).

Having awareness of Bots is important, not only to avail oneself of useful applications, but especially to prevent damage caused by malicious Bots, such as fake Social Media users, created for political propaganda, or to spread viruses.