Announcement

A.P.B.: talking bots

Talking bots: it’s bot week on Data & Society’s Points…

Last December we hosted our first provocateur in residence,* Sam Woolley, who led a workshop that brought together a group of experts to get a better grip on the questions that bots raise.

Output from the workshop is being published all week:

How to Think About Bots by Samuel Woolley, danah boyd, Meredith Broussard, Madeleine Elish, Lainna Fader, Tim Hwang, Alexis Lloyd, Gilad Lotan, Luis Daniel Palacios, Allison Parrish, Gilad Rosner, Saiph Savage, and Samantha Shorey

On Paying Attention: How to Think about Bots as Social Actors by Madeleine Elish

Bots: A definition and some historical threads by Allison Parrish

…an encyclopedia botannica…

Rise of the Peñabots by Luis Daniel Palacios

What is it like to be a bot? by Samantha Shorey

A Brief Survey of Journalistic Twitter Bot Projects by Lainna Fader

…a symbotsium…

Activist Bots: Helpful But Missing Human Love? by Saiph Savage

Our friends, the bots? by Alexis Lloyd

What is the Value of a Bot? by danah boyd

…and a bot-anist’s Wunderkammer, for those who want to continue to follow workshop participants and the Twitter bots they cited.


* “Provocateur in residence?” Yes, Data & Society is experimenting with weeklong residencies in which an invited “provocateur” engages the D&S community by directing a focused exploration of a topic — through seminars, workshops, lectures, brainstorming sessions, field trips, and hackathons or other hands-on work. Provocateurs are invited based on interest from a quorum of D&S fellows, researchers, affiliates, advisors, and friends.