{"id":81014,"date":"2016-08-22T14:37:04","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T18:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2021-08-22T20:24:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T00:24:06","slug":"chatbot-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/chatbot-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"Chatbot Risks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chatbot<\/a>Chatbots are the latest rage<\/a> on social media<\/strong>. As Time<\/em><\/a> explained<\/a>, they have been around since the 1960s. That\u2019s when MIT<\/a> professor Joseph Weizenbaum<\/a> created a chatbot called ELIZA.<\/a><\/strong> Chatbots found a home on desktop messaging clients like AOL Instant Messenger<\/a><\/strong>. Chatbots went dormant as messaging transitioned away from desktops and onto mobile devices.<\/p>\n

\"Sophiscated<\/a>But they\u2019re poised for a resurgence in 2016<\/strong>. There are two reasons for this. First, artificial intelligence<\/strong> and cloud computing<\/strong> has gotten better thanks to improvements in machine learning. Second, bots could be big money.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tech titans have chatbots on social media<\/h3>\n

All the tech titans have released social bots<\/strong> on the web; Apple’s<\/a> (AAPL<\/a>) Siri,<\/a> Facebook’s<\/a> (FB<\/a>) “bots on Messenger<\/a>“, Google’s <\/a>(GOOG<\/a>) Allo<\/a>, and Microsoft’s<\/a> (MSFT<\/a>) ill-fated Tay<\/a>. They believe there\u2019s a buck to be made here, and they\u2019re scrambling to make sure they don\u2019t get left out.<\/p>\n

\"SocialThe July issue of the Communications of the ACM<\/a> included an article, \u201cThe Rise of Social Bots<\/em><\/a>,\u201d which lays out social bots’ impact on online communities and society at large. The authors define a social bot as a computer algorithm that automatically produces content and interacts with humans on social media, trying to emulate and possibly alter their behavior<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Business Insider<\/em><\/a> published<\/a> this infographic about the social bot ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\"Business<\/a><\/p>\n

Chatbots can be deceptive<\/h3>\n

The ACM<\/em> article argues that social bots populate techno-social systems; they are often benign, or even useful, but some are created to harm by tampering with, manipulating, and deceiving social media users.<\/strong> The article offers several examples of how social bots can be a hindrance. The first example involves the Twitter<\/a> (TWTR<\/a>) posts around the Boston Marathon bombing<\/a>. The researcher’s analysis found that social bots were automatically retweeting false accusations and rumors<\/a>. The researchers argue that forwarding false claims<\/strong> without verifying the false tweets granted the false information more influence.<\/p>\n

\"bots<\/a>The ACM<\/em> article also discusses how social bots can artificially inflate political candidates<\/strong>. During the 2010 mid-term elections some politicians used social bots to inject thousands of false tweets to smear their opponents<\/a>. This type of activity puts the integrity of the democratic process at risk<\/strong>. These types of attackers are also called astroturfing<\/a>, or twitter-bombs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anti-vaxxer chatbots<\/h3>\n

The article offers another example of the use of social bots to influence an election in California. During the recent debate in California about a law on vaccination requirements<\/strong> there appears to be widespread use of social bots by opponents to vaccinations<\/strong>. This social bot interference puts an unknown number of people at risk of death or disease<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"bot<\/a>Greed is the most likely use of social bots. One example from the article is the April 2013 hack of the Twitter account of the Associated Press. In this case, the Syrian Electronic Army<\/a> used the hacked account to posted a false statement<\/strong> about a terror attack on the White House which injured President Obama. This false story provoked an immediate $136 Billion stock market crash<\/a><\/strong> as an unwarranted result of the widespread use of social bots to amplify false rumors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chatbots manipulate social media reality<\/h3>\n

Research<\/a> has shown that human emotions are contagious on social media<\/strong>. This means that social bots can be used to artificially manipulate social media users’ perception of reality<\/strong> without being aware they are being manipulated. The article says the latest generation of Twitter social bots has many \u201chuman-like\u201d online behaviors that make it difficult to separate bots from humans<\/strong>. According to the authors, social bots can:<\/p>\n