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Bots, Spiders & Emotional Agents

feb 9 '02
Yes, the third exam period (or the "retake", or the "remake", or whatever?! it is) will be held in the last week of March, 2002. It is intended for those who did not pass the final exam their first time (in December 2001 or in January 2002). The actual date is still to be announced. If you do intend to take the exam at this time, please send an email to me quickly to let me know.

previous announcements...

This is a 4-point course intended for upper-divisional undergraduates and graduate students. Although not strictly required, students should have preferably taken Networks, Comparative Languages, and AI before signing up for this course. Read the full description. Below are a few details:

In this course, we will examine the software, methodologies, and emerging technological architectures used in creating autonomous bots, spiders, and agents for use on the Internet and the World-Wide Web. We will explore bots that are used by both individuals and organizations to perform complex tasks, including Spiders, Crawlers, MailBots, Harvesters, Chatterbots, IRC-bots, VideoBots, and more. Theory, design, and programming are included. There will be multiple source-code examples of bots handed out for study, implementation, extension, and/or exploration. Students will gain experience with several bot-laden activities currently permeating the net, including IRC, HotLine, and Muds & MOOs.

Topics:
We hope to cover a broad variety of topics relatd to Internet and WWW bots and agents. The course is divided into three major phases: Net bots, Support Bots, and Emotional Bots. In each phase, students will study multiple bot designs, In each phases, we will study both particular bots and their codes as well as net-based application systems that exploit bots in innovative ways. Because the bots we will explore are autonomous and net-based, there will be ample opportunities for each student to interact with the bots of other students, and for each student's bot to be exposed to other humans. The following list of topics is not complete, but it does cover the general topic areas included in the course:

• Worker Bots: spiders & crawlers, retrievers, notifiers
• the Robot.txt protocol
• programming bots in REBOL (numerous examples)
• X-Internet & Lightweight Distributed Computng (LDC)
• Commercial Search-Engines & Bots (Googlebot, Lycos, Slurp)
• Internet Protocols (HTTP, FTP, POP, SMTP, IRC)
• MS Agents (speech recognition, text to speech, animated agents)
• Emotional Agents & Intelligent Agents (Chatterbots, VideoBots)
• where's HAL?
• The Turing Test, Believability, Suspension of Disbelief
• X-10, Smart Homes & Smart Environments, Smart TVs and MP3 Radios
• Virtual Immortality, computational biology, and agents

There are seven homework assignments for the course. The relevant information for each can be found by clicking on the links below. The information is printed as an Adobe Acrobat file, so you will need Acrobat Reader to read the files.

• HW1: Just a simple lab assignment
• HW2: Web splitter
• HW3: Email Harvesting
• HW4: Chatterbot Analysis
• HW5: InfoDroppings
• HW6: Creating a HeX Brain & Personality
• HW7: MS Agent Technology & MASH

HotLine Server: Because we will be exloring and integrating so many software tools and systems in this course, we have set up a HotLine Server in order to make it easier for everyone. This server can be freely used by all class members at any time throughout the entire semester (and beyond). Although there is a great deal of material on the site, the resources specifically dedicated to this class are under the directory names "Class Rez". We will use the Hotline Server for distributing homework components and data sets, software tools and applications, technical papers, tutorials, code segments, and who knows what else. Additionally, the online chat capability is there for all to use. After installing the HotLine client, you can find many more resources at the BotCourse Hotline site. The Hotline server's IP address is

More information about HotLine, including tutorials, info links, examples, and more can be found at the company site: www.bigredh.com. In particular, read the pages on setting up your trackers so you can explore the thousands of other HotLine sites, trolling for bots!

Email Discussion Group(s): We should soon have one or more email accounts set up at e-mail.com for use by class members. One of these will be used to support an offline email discussion capability. Others can be used for bot experiments and testing. We will notify the class when this has been completed.

Lab Room: There are several computers in Room 120 that will be equipped with bot and agent-related application systems, video scripting systems, and the like. Class members may use these systems by prescheduling their use.

Some Ressources to Download: Here are a few links to essential resources to download and install in order to get going.

Hotline Client for the PC (5.4 MB)

Hotline Client for the Mac (856 KB)

The "Gaggle of Bots" system allows students to explore an email-based system of cooperating bots that provide a set of services to their users. These services are all delivered over the Internet through email, although the bots themselves use other Internet protocols and services to accomplish their goals. Even though the bots in the Gaggle are 'worker-bee" bots, they have been imbued with superficial personalities. Further, the Gaggle itself is modeled on a "society". One goal is to explore and demonstrate the personification of cybersystems.

Current members of the Gaggle include the following bots:

Because the system of bots is still under construction, interested students can participate in its development.

jan 9 '02
I have added some material to the Online Tech Readings, including several new MS & Ph.D. theses and technical publications related to "personifcation".

jan 5 '02
HotLine server problems: The server has been offline several days during the holidays. I am unsure why, but regardless, it is now back up and running.