Bots don't kill people, humans do

I'm claiming a new word today: "Bunderfelded". When you have been Bunderfelded you've had your comment on a forum removed, generally rather quickly, for no other reason than it upsets the person running the forum due to the nature of the tricky questions you pose. This is of course inspired by Bob Bunderfeld, I'd point you in the direction of some example comments on the official forum but they've been Bunderfelded!

The anti bot movement is growing in popularity. Some of the growth without doubt stems from a misunderstanding of the purpose of bots, the load they place on the servers and the way in which they are used.

However some of the complaints are justfied even if bots aren't the cause of the recent login problems. At this point we should step back and look at Asimov's three rules of robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Now let's look at rule number one. There are definitely cases where the actions of bots allow humans to come to harm, land bots who buy at obviously mistaken prices and whose owners refuse to do the decent thing being one, of course it could be argued it's a human doing the harm, but a bot purchased the land.

Now with regard rule number two, bots certainly seem to follow orders, do those orders conflict with rule one? Well if you can't get into your home sim because camping bots have filled the area you'd certainly think so, but again it's the human behind the bots doing the real damage.

Now rule number three doesn't really apply to Second Life. The Bots protection society is very much a human issue, Bots themselves have no self preservation, humans behind them justify their use.

The case for the prosecution of Bots is, I would argue, unjustified. However the case for the prosectution of Bot runners? That's a different kettle of fish.

The best argument I've seen for the use of Bots is that they can do things that the LSL scripting language doesn't allow people to do. Automatic group invites springs immediately to mind, land bots that can scan the search engine fast enough to pickup those bargain plots is another.

The question really is whether Bots are ethical. For example, if something isn't available via LSL, should it be allowed at all? I'd argue that yes it should and I'm sure that's Linden Lab's stance. In the case of automatic group inviters there's certainly merit, it's a feature many of us would like available, of course if it's used to spam people that's a different matter but that crosses another line.

In the case of Land Bots, I'm not sure this is ethical, not because of the issue of them picking up plots that are wrongly priced, but because Linden Lab have placed a throttle on how much searching of land sales one can do, try it yourself and you'll find that if you click the next page button too fast, results won't be displayed. Therefore I'd say these Land Bots probably are hammering the database a little too hard.

Now when it comes to Traffic Bots, I'm sorry, I don't care how little load they place on a sim, they are simply taking the piss. There really should be a limit on the amount of alts we have. There are several reasons for wanting alts, the most legitimate being the twenty five group limit and the need for two people to be in a group for a group to remain active. I'm not sure why Linden Lab have this rule, but it makes the need for an alt all the greater.

Then there are people who want to explore or create unhindered and create an alt, that's all well and good. Creating ten, twenty, thirty alts just to increase traffic? There is no ethical reason for this to happen. Linden Lab have promised a new camping/bot policy and although I'm not waiting with baited breath I really do hope they take the common sense approach and tell people that creating alts to act as camping/traffic/modelling bots simply isn't acceptable. This may not make much difference to the performance issues we've had lately, but it will be popular.

I don't think all the ills of the world should be blamed on bots, the same as I don't think all the ills of the world should be blamed on camping, both serve a purpose, but when that purpose is clearly unethical then it really should be nipped in the bud.

Bots, love them or loathe them, are here to stay, but let's play fair with their usage.