We both know, you and I, that we need to talk, don’t we?
It’s been building up for some time, we know. Now we have to get it out in the open and face facts.
You’re a cartoon aren’t you? It doesn’t matter how many colors you are, I didn’t say you were a Simpson just that you are a cartoon. Of course, have your many-shaded skin texture and your fancy clothes with realistic folds and flaws. But you’re a cartoon, in a cartoon world. It’s ok. It’s ok to say it out loud. Once it’s out loud we can deal with it, come to terms with it. It’s ok. It’s ok because I am too. I know I am, have always known it. I suspect you knew you were too, but we never admitted it to each other.
Now is the time to do it, because now I want to tell you about bots. I hate bots.
They are loathsome. If this was a cartoon Eden, then they would be the snake. They are the real worm in our fake paradise. Let me tell you why. In here, in the Utherverse, the proposition offered beyond text contact through chat, whether a messenger system or chatroom, is a representational graphic interface. It isn’t video, it isn’t real life, it is representative. And because it works (mostly) and because it is additional to the text we still type, we forgive the simplicity of the images and they become an enhancement to the imagination we still require.
That’s if you pay for your VIP of course. Actions are limited somewhat if you stay green, but quite a few of us hand over the cash because we feel the additions to the fantasy we create in our heads are worth it.
I don’t know how many possible movements there are in the Utherverse system. Let’s be generous and say 300. That’s not bad I suppose. However, each one is the same. You scratch your ear the same way I scratch mine. (Yes, I know there is no ear scratching, it’s a theoretical example, ok?) In real life I scratch my ear in so many nuanced ways that you would know immediately whether I intended it to show irritation, anxiety, anger, eroticism or just because my goddam ear itches.
So we forgive the simplicities in the Utherverse because on the other end of that cartoon character is a real person. We are interacting through an interface and between us we accept its shortcomings and make it work. Except we are not.
Now it is a bot. It looks as realistic as the avatars we all use because it is the same as the avatars we all use. It can carry out most of the same actions we all use – particularly the ones most of us use most. And it does this not in a similar way to us. It does it in exactly the same way we do it, because it is the same graphical representation, using the same movement instructions.
And why?
Because not content with having a premium-rated buy-in facility RLC want something to upsell to the customers they already have. So they invent a uVIP and one of the benefits of that is that you can make bots. The fact they are undermining the identities they sell to real people, the core of the proposition, the foundation of their business, matters not. It’s not just about the money, it’s about more money.
Hey boys! You just turned the human cartoon I am into a cartoon automaton.
So, Robbie and all your mates,
have a look at my Three Laws of Robotics:
1. Get out of my bed
2. Get out of my home
3. Get out of my world
WHY I HATE BOTS
By Kitty