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Bot-avatar Pesters Second Life Users (For Science!)
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."
Sounds more like 'Second Wife' than Second Life...
"Did you know that more Second Life avatars prefer the taste of Diet Pepsi Max to Diet Coke Plus with Vitamins?"
"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!
My blog
...researchers stalk people online to see if they mind.
"Out of 28 avatars approached this way, 12 simply moved away and 20 also responded via text chat."
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.)
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
... our "Spare-some-change-lad?" automatic beggars overlords!
Now, that would be a cool idea for a bot net experiment =oP
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Spamatars exist in wow... so why not SL?
This begs the question... do Westerners stand further apart than Asians when chatting in a virtual world? I would guess so. For some reason I occasionally find myself backing up my avatar a step or two and facing it towards the avatar I'm talking to, without even thinking about it really.
The article mentions fleetingly at the end that the ethical issue is still up for grabs. I wonder if they actually got IRB approval for use of human subjects. Even though it is a bot that interacts with the other avatars, it is still an investigator-designed intervention into this space, they are collecting data in a deliberate and systematic way, and looking to generalize the results. The fact that they are collecting data without consent and using it in this manner strikes me as a violation of user privacy. Yes, I serve on an institutional IRB, and no, this would never pass in my institution. It is frightening that these researches imply that there is somehow a lower standard for virtual environments (it is not the avatar that is being studied, but the human on the other end) for the conduct of psychological experimentation.
(v) take any actions or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that contains any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information; I'd consider that detrimental interference. Also, there's this one
(vii) upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, or promotional materials, that are in the nature of "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation that Linden Lab considers in its sole discretion to be of such nature;
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.
SL-bot observed pairs of normal avatars as they interacted. It found that users are, on average, six times more likely to shift position when someone comes to within 1.2 m. That backs up the idea that people also value their virtual personal space, say the researchers.
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.
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
Why does Slashdot give so much coverage to Linden Labs? Are they being paid or what?
I mean I don't know a single person that plays Second Life.
I, too, was thinking this sort of study would best be done by hand, but for a different reason.
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 illusion once it advances to a full conversation.
Ring of power
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
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Daily I end up banning a bunch of "naked ruth" bots (as others do) that don't seem todo much other than idle in various places.
I don't know what they're doing, but if it's for research purposes, it's really getting to be really annoying. The banlist I have has exceeded over a hundred of these being banned and they keep coming back (under different names). This isn't the main grid which is considered public, it's a grid of private simulators (known as the valley sims) and there has not been any permission granted at all for research purposes in the simulators I help out in.
It is at the end of the day wasting a lot of my time and I consider these bots without prior consent, harassment.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Second Life players are used to harassment from morons. When you are harassed by morons in real life, you have to move away, as that's the path of least resistance. When you are harassed online, you completely ignore them, as that's the path of least resistance.
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.
technical writing / development
You don't need to spend hours writing a bloody bot for this. I tried Second Life out last week, and this was one of the first things I came across. Because I found the movement a little different, I was accidentally walking into people/on their toes, which in most cases resulted in them complaining about their 'personal space' and/or privacy.
Why was a bot used for this anyway?
ilovegeorgebush
Cage Gun
Are they hot?
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
This is a really crude technique, given that they could automate either the OpenSL client or the open source version of the SL client rather than using a scripted attachment.
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?
little robot helicopters flying around with advertisements yay
So how many users chopped off the intruder's appendages with a katana and then had their homemade daemons clean up their handiwork?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
An interesting part of the article was the discussion of the technique involved.
:) )
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....
Test your net with Netalyzr
it's a grid of private simulators (known as the valley sims)
Like, maybe those weren't bots, but, like, Valley Girls, you know.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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.
When I do it to teenage girls on the subway, it's called 6 to 12 months.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It does not "beg the question." "Begging the question" is a logical fallacy which is not being committed here.
It raises the question.
Ha ha. NO.
One of the very few things I never saw shouted at Britain's bank in UO was "GRIEFING FOR SCIENCE!"
As someone said in the comments to TFA, many people back away not to keep their personal space, but to be able to see the avatar in front of them.
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 apart that they could see each other properly.
So let's not be hasty about the results here. It may not be about personal space at all.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
"Online research" patent claimed by FBI and RIAA.
Back several years ago when Star Wars Galaxies just came out, my brother did a similar avatar experiment on me. SWG only allowed one character per server per game copy so my brother went out and bought a second copy of the game and another computer to run a full time mining character on the same server as our adventuring characters (ah, the glory days when we still thought that kind of thing was important). He failed to mention this detail to me. One day we were out questing (using headsets) and this very random character came up to me in Mos Eisley and started following me around typing a stream of non sequiturs like "what's the frequency Kenneth? Reveal the blue bug rathouse conspiracy!" over and over. My brother and I had this extended conversation in the headsets about how random and rude this was until I finally caught on when the freaky character mentioned some inside joke (which took me aback initially). Invasion of "online space" is rarely Evil, but it can be really, really annoying and distracting. I doubt this is a surprise to anyone.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Seems to me that following statement is still faulse :
./ "Ten Strangely Cruel Science Experiments", http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/03/1730257
"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 world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
... he didn't try to sell you viagra.
"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?"
No, I'd beat the crap out of him. Then, I'd throw him/her out.
MLM people are just plain annoying.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Your kid ever play paintball, laser-tag, or anything like that?
It's just like a web site: if you have an open access policy, you can't complain if people come in.
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."
"presumably spam-avatars (spavatars?) won't be far behind."
:-)
Hmm I would thing Spam-Avatar's should be called "Spartan's" That way the inevitable protection would be a trusty pack of Trojan's...
This is silly. Personal space in real life is not the same as in "virtual life". For one, you have a very limited scope of perception via a monitor. A person blocking your view of this small window will of course be annoying. But I bet an avatar could stand directly behind another one, and one could care less. You don't have "senses" other than limited sight and sound.
In real life, personal space is... well, personal, because there's TOUCH (or unwanted touching), bad breath, body heat, smells, risk of mugging, etc, that all raise a person's anxiety up. The reactions in RL are all very emotionally and psychologically related.
In Virtual life, the choice to move away is simply TECHNICAL. You have a limited view of the world, so you'll likely choose to move away from anything obstructing that view. And I don't know if Second Life has avatar-to-avatar collision detection; If it does then obviously anything obstructed activities or movement will also be annoying. These are all technical matters.
If other online spamvertising models are to be trusted, any actual "human" in Second Life will be set upon by a mob of dirty spambot bums immediately after they log in. Want to find the humans on Second Life? Look in the middle of any spambot herd. That is, if you are able to look before a shuffling mob of spambots surrounds your avatar.
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 spambots, then hang the gutted spambot carcasses over the side of the van.
Or is this starting to sound too much like "Resident Evil: Second Life Edition?"
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
Spamming by any other name? You're still being an annoyance, no matter your motivations.
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.
-Styopa
Well, if there's one thing I've learned in my days on MUDs is that there's always a minority who gets their kicks out of being assholes and annoying to everyone else. And they're always ready and willing to twist logic in the most incredible ways to argue why it's a good thing, and you should allow... nay, be thankful that they're doing it in your game. Among other things:
- 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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Taser
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Just keeping track on potential recruits, sir.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11/1857215
Oh, it's a bot this time. That's completely different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyNcB8HfwGI
how is babby formed?