Bot-avatar Pesters Second Life Users (For Science!) 124
holy_calamity writes "A bot-controlled avatar that tracks down lone avatars in Second Life and purposely invades their personal space has been created by UK researchers. The idea was to see if users value their virtual personal space. Bots avatars are not encouraged by Linden Labs — although this one is being deployed by academics, presumably spam-avatars (spavatars?) won't be far behind."
Personal Space (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Personal Space (Score:4, Insightful)
"Virtual Shotgun". For those who really want their privacy.
While I don't normally understand why you'd play an online game to just be alone - from what I understand of second life you could have the equivalent of 'prepping', IE you're creating something to be shown later. Whether this is a house or an adult accessory, it doesn't really matter.
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I mean, imagine you have a party and someone keeps trying to sell his Amway crap, going on everyone's nerves. Wouldn't you throw him out?
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I couldn't help but think to myself what the fuck is this guy's
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Personal Space or not? (Score:2)
No, I'd beat the crap out of him. Then, I'd throw him/her out.
MLM people are just plain annoying.
Re:Personal Space (Score:4, Interesting)
You should be posting in this thread. [slashdot.org]
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It was more of a 'get off my yard' response.
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It really depends on the context and how my day has been...
Sometimes I will log in to WoW with the intent of playing alone. I'll go run through a dungeon, or do some quests, or kill some critters by myself. It's a game, it's fun, it's a nice way to unwind after a long day. And if the day has been annoying enough I may not want to deal with other people at all.
Sometimes my wife and I will go off adventuring together... Explor
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Hi! (Score:1)
"H3RB4L V1AGR4!!! Only $19.95/30 day supply!!!"
"HI! I AM WEALTHY FOREIGN DIGNATARY AND I NEED TO MOVE A LARGE SUM OF MONEY..."
*Arrrggggghhhh!!!* Thank the gods for my BFG10K Second Life hack!
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Hmmm...I think I need help here (with the programming), but actually couldn't we use an algorithm to detect spamatars(c)?
if..=|physical_manifestation=="ron jeremy"|
..then =mode, run!
Another headline... (Score:4, Insightful)
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
"Online research" patent claimed by FBI and RIAA.
At least it's a new excuse ;) (Score:4, Informative)
- that it's great fun for everyone, and their victims who complain about it somehow don't know what they really want in a game. Why, they'd probably leave in droves if someone didn't harrass them.
- that it's a pre-requisite for role-playing. (Apparently being killed again and again by someone 30 levels higher than you, and with battlecries of, "LOL! N00B! U SUCK! I FUCKED UR MOM!" is proper role-playing. In fact, the only kind of role playing.)
- that it was testing, if they were using a bug against everyone else, and they were surely going to report it. They "tested" it 100 times a day for a whole month just to be really sure how it works, and submit a really really good bug-report, you know.
- that the first amendment gives them a sacred right to say and do whatever they want, anywhere they want, and to anyone they want. And if you try to stop them, that's the road to tyranny and slavery. (Never mind that the actual text refers to the Congress, not to a privately owned server.)
Etc, etc, etc.
That it's for scientific research... well, now that's a new excuse. Just when I thought I had heard heard everything.
But I hope that everyone will excuse me if I still see it through the eyes of a jaded old MUD coder. The primary aspect is that it's (mild) harassment, no matter in the name of what mis-guided idea or excuse it's done. It's inconveniencing someone else, so don't do it.
Even if it seems like a mild annoyance at best, already there is no shortage of people annoying everyone else. And then there are people who come from a very stressful RL situation to unwind online. Even a mild annoyance just adds to the existing stress, when one is stressed enough. If someone came home after the boss riding his butt for 2 hours, dealing with clueless people for the other 6, and maybe add something like a visit to the dentist and/or an argument with his wife, the last thing he needs is an annoying newbie getting in his face all the time.
And I might even shrug and move on if it were a genuine newbie who barely has enough WASD motor skills to get in that room at all, but not enough to maneuver himself in a socially acceptable position. But it being a (mild) harassment bot and justified as "research"... dunno... just feels... wrong.
Statistics! (Score:5, Insightful)
So they 'simply moved away' and some also responded by text? Then they didn't 'simply move away'.
And 28 is a pretty small sample. Why bother having a bot for so small a sample? Wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just do it by hand? Or just let it run a few days before publishing the results? And those who stayed put... How many were idling (not even at their computer) and how many simply ignored the childish idiot that was harrassing them? (You don't have to play online games for long until you've met enough idiots and learn that ignoring them is the best possible course of action, especially the ones that want to get right up on you and do stupid things.)
Re:Statistics! (Score:4, Insightful)
That having been said, I totally agree with your post: 28 events is a ridiculously small sample size to try and measure the behavior of people in virtual worlds. Considering they went to the bother of writing a bot, one would hope they will leave it running for awhile longer to accumulate more data.
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But imagine how many nearly identical conference/research papers they can conjure up by slowly increasing the sample size they report on!
CC.
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"But imagine how many nearly identical conference/research papers they can conjure up by slowly increasing the sample size they report on! "
And here I was going to say: "Yes, but a larger sample size makes it less likely they can get some anomalous result that makes headlines."
I like yours better. Which reminds me, let's get back to debating this whole "42" thing...
re: better to do it manually? (Score:2)
In real life, I know I'd be far more annoyed by a robot of some sort entering my "personal space", pretending to be a real human, and striking up a somewhat stilted conversation with me than a REAL human talking to me.
I've never seen the A.I. in these "bots" advance to a point where you can't tell they're not really another human. They typically ask a good "introductory" question or two, but can't keep up the ill
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No, there were only 28 connected who weren't engaging in furry/bdsm cybering.
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Those were all users online you insensitive clod.
I for one welcome ... (Score:2)
Now, that would be a cool idea for a bot net experiment =oP
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I'm down.
One flaw (Score:5, Insightful)
They observed that female avatars were less guarding about their personal space then males, a behaviour apparently the same as in real life.
The flaw? Female avatars do NOT have to be controlled by a female user.
Would a male playing a female mimick this behaviour? IF that is the case, that would make a far more intresting study. If it isn't then their measurements are flawed since they cannot tell what sex a user really is.
Re:One flaw (Score:5, Funny)
Huh? You mean that cute elf girl I've been dating... Oh shit..
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(Especially as the second one is illegal in more countries than the first
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Careful, this can happen in real life also [wikipedia.org].
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*shrugs* You do find a lot more transgenders in SL than you do in real life. But most of them are honest about it.
interesting test for science' sake (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope (Score:1, Informative)
It raises the question.
Re:interesting test for science' sake (Score:4, Funny)
No, they stand the same distance apart; it would violate the laws of physics if one of them was "further apart" than the other. What a peculiar question.
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Does Second Life use GURPS under the hood?
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Perceived distance is quite relative: a mile is a lot farther if you're walking than if you're driving; a child may view the top of a refrigerator as unreachable while an adult can reach it with ease; being 10 ft. from your opponent is a lot farther away when you're holding a knife than when you're holding a
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do Westerners stand further apart than Asians when chatting in a virtual world?
No, they stand the same distance apart; it would violate the laws of physics if one of them was "further apart" than the other. What a peculiar question.
Ridiculous. It is perfectly possible in a virtual world that the distance from person A to person B is less than the distance from person B to person A.
If you're going to be a pedantic, grammar-nazi jackass, bring a little technical common sense with you.
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It's interesting to see how many real-world behaviors show up on-line, even though there's no real physical reason for it.
In the real world, I don't like people much. I can't stand crowds. I avoid Wal-Mart and shopping malls as much as possible.
IRB issue (Score:5, Insightful)
They did not get approval... (Score:2)
Not according to the article:
And I entirely agree with you... the idea that it's OK to treat people differently through the intermediary of a computer network is disturbing.
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I agree; that's when I catch my son spending too much time gibbing [wikipedia.org] and teabagging [wikipedia.org] in Halo I tell him to get out and do it in real life instead. Kids these days.
Funny, but... (Score:2)
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Military training, sir. (Score:2)
Re:They did not get approval... (Score:4, Informative)
Here are links to relevant sites:
Appendix A: Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm [hhs.gov]
Appendix B: The Belmont Report
[hhs.gov]http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.htm [hhs.gov]
A copy of our screening form and a link to the AERA grid for risk and ameliorative measures can be found at: http://www.imsa.edu/learning/research/hasrc/ [imsa.edu]Re: (Score:1)
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Yes, I serve on an institutional IRB, and no, this would never pass in my institution.
Out of curiosity, why wouldn't it pass?
It doesn't seem too different from psych experiments where a researcher stands in a public place and does something or asks a certain question. (E.g. a famous one was to have an attractive female and male person ask passerbys on a college campus if they wanted to go have casual sex right now.) I was under the impression that experiments in public places didn't require the explicit consent of each unwitting participant (provided, of course, that the experiment invol
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I was under the impression that experiments in public places didn't require the explicit consent of each unwitting participant
this raises the question : "when connected online with other people, are you in public space or private space ?"
* when online, i (presumably) am at home, in private space
* only a part of my self & conscious is in relation with other people (the same if i am telephoning)
therefore it can be seen as a huge private phone conversation ?
after all there are regulations & debates worldwide regarding online privacy and what can be and cannot be done
also the answer has repercusions on marketing (c
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I thought it begged the question. I swear, the world is loosing its ability to speak good.
Bots avatars are not encouraged? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are others that I believe apply to the utilization of a bot, potential exploits through bots (ex. spamming) or both. Also, what they're extrapulating from the empirical evidence is off IMHO as well.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with being courteous, putting the new character into view to inspect or anything else. Yeah, they wanted their "personal virtual space"... sure. Sounds like another misread on cause and effect at the expense of opening a pandora's box.
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One Ring to rule them all... (Score:3, Interesting)
The ring connects the avatar to software that not only controls its actions, but can record everything going on around it. This is an extreme example of the way objects can control characters in Second Life
Once again proving that Second Life is becoming more and more like Tolkien's world of Lord of the Rings
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Naked Ruth Bots? (Score:3, Funny)
-Mike
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"Ruth" is the name for the default female avatar.
The default appearance in SL is female, so unless the bot changes its appearance, it's going to look female.
Bots, when created appear naked due to the bot's user not bothering to write the code needed to make it wear some clothes, or logging in under the account to put something on. This makes them very recognizable though, so I expect at some point the bot runners will start dressing them.
I got to agree with Ash on that they're pretty ugly. Not e
Bots or Valley Girls? (Score:2)
Like, maybe those weren't bots, but, like, Valley Girls, you know.
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Sounds to me like you should replace yourself with a very small shell script [thinkgeek.com].
you need a CAPTCHA (Score:2)
If you want only real people to enter, use a CAPTCHA: put a texture on some surface and/or a sound in the environment that says: "Please say the magic word 'apple star' or be kicked out."
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By "open access" I mean that people can just wander in. If they can just wander in, bots will wander in; that's just a fact.
Not that it helps since we often get people from many different nations (who can't speak English)... Germans, Korean, Japanese, Russians and languages I don't recognize (never had to kick one out since they used common sense).
Well, tough. Either bots wander in, or you have people register, or you use a CAPTCHA.
Nevermind the fact th
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I'm sorry that you didn't find my advice of using a CAPTCHA useful, but other people who aren't as unimaginative and argumentative as you may, in fact, find the suggestion useful.
I'm also sorry that you can't figure out how to make
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If you want only real people to enter, use a CAPTCHA
CAPTCHAs allow only people who can recognise the letters to come in. They don't allow all real people in. Blind people can't get in, as well as those with little time in their hands who prefer to do something more meaningful than spending their time trying to decipher CAPTCHAs.
Many times I have encountered CAPTCHAs that I could not solve (at least in the few times I tried), so I just stopped visiting sites that employed so stupid CAPTCHAs. A simple CAPTCHA which can clearly be read is perhaps okay wh
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Ruthing happens when someone's connection is flaking out, or your sim's connection to the asset server is flakey. Sometimes that means they're also naked (their clothing and attachments aren't loading properly -- just like their shape and skin).
So... banning them because SL is flaking out on them -- while your right as an estate manager -- seems arbitrary and unfair. (Probably better to send them home -- they either come back unRuthed, or not at all.) Also, better to bug the Lindens (via jira and mayb
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Path of least resistance (Score:2)
They should have given their spamatar a virtual trenchcoat and bare feet, had it holding out lollipops and rasping about the joy of intergenerational love, and then they would have fit right in.
Waste (Score:2)
Why was a bot used for this anyway?
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Perhaps because its behavior is consistent.
Seriously though, I remember this sort of bullshit "research" 10 years ago on MOOs. Sure there's room for legitimate research into social dynamics of virtual environments, but I always wondered what kind of state academia was in when this sort of methodology was considered acceptable. It reminds me of the sort of high school science fair exhibits like "comparing the effects of classical vs rock music on insects".
Two words: (Score:2)
Sounds really crude and pretty abusive. (Score:2)
But more than that, if they were doing this in RL... walking up to people and deliberately annoying them as part of an experiment, without getting consent... would they have been allowed to do it? Should it be any different in VR?
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argent.
Hey, argent.
argent.
Hi, argent.
argent.
ZOMG, I HAVE BORKEN TEH INTARWEBS HARASSMINT LAWZ!!
Just wait till this is RL (Score:1)
Hiro (Score:5, Funny)
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Ring of Power: Cute.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently, Lindon doesn't want bots, so you can't script avatars. But items can be scripted, and items can instruct avatars to do things. So you just script an item to instruct the avatar what to do...
Trez cool. (Now if only you could make the item replicating and infectious....
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And as for replication, check out the YouTube video on a "gray goo" [youtube.com] attack using self replicating rings. Despite it's many flaws, I find Second Life interesting simply for the way that it has to deal with such things. The
Oh, when THEY do it in SL, it's called research (Score:4, Funny)
Many years ago... (Score:2)
Field of view (Score:1)
Personally, when I was on SL, my avatar was rather tall. If someone about 80% of my height came up to me, I couldn't see them, not without moving the camera around. It was easier to just hit the down arrow and back away a step. I've seen many people do this, over and over. Even people in a relationship, posing their smooches and kisses while standing far enough ap
avatar space invaders (Score:3, Insightful)
Cruel Science Experiment ? (Score:1)
"Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past"
The Spambot Horde (Score:2)
Maybe Second Life could start allowing a chainsaw item. That or they could hire bounty hunters who would ride around on platforms atop big black vans and harpoon the spa
Hm (Score:1, Flamebait)
Since it's 'legitimized' apparently by the academics' good intentions, would it also be legitimate for an enthusiastic and devoted Christian to issue a spambot that chases you around with the message of Christ's Forgiveness until your avatar accepts electronic baptism?
Frankly, I think someone should mailbomb the researchers....as part of a legitimate academic survey, of course.
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Delayed Dupe (Score:2)
Oh, it's a bot this time. That's completely different.
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