‘Got Bot?’
‘Got Questions?’
‘Who Am I?’
‘What is Artificial Intelligence?’
‘What is Life?’

Then, the answers: ‘The Buddhabot is there to learn and listen, guide and teach’.

‘Help Buddhabot help humanity evolve today’.

‘Go to buddhabots.com and donate today, your heart and your mind awaits you.’

The first question, ‘got bot?’, doesn’t make sense. Perhaps, then, its function is to shock to gather attention? It is interesting that the questions about the nature of the self, the nature of AI and Life is bundled together. These are questions that all botmasters are interested in and explore. I’m beginning to wonder, however, how many other people share this existential relationship with AI. To me, the use of a bot in a story or website, is intentionally a comment on the nature of life. I use bots in my storytelling because I want the reader to think about why I’ve chosen a bot rather than use human actors or textual descriptions, and what a bot is. But many gamers, for instance, do not see a bot in a game on any other level other than a tool or prop. Whenever I play a game I’m more concerned about staying alive or getting information than considering the philosophical ramifications of my interactions with embodied code. I’m mentioning this observation here because I’m curious as to whether the questions on the Buddhabot ad will be shared by the spectators.

The second part of the ad…well, I’ve commented before on how I object ot the bundling of esteem and money…

But I find the fact that a bot is advertised in such a mass manner very exciting. Go Bots! I can’t wait to see bot characters as brands — where a character that you as a botmaster spend years developing becomes a place, a person, that people want to spend time with.

And I can’t help seeing a contemporary ELIZA aesthetic here.

There is also now a Buddhabot Blog.

Info sourced from Alicebot and Buddhbot News.