Very quietly.

Many didn’t even hear of bots. No one ever met one.

But don’t be fooled. They are here. And they’re going to take over the world.

A bot, to put things into order, is a small “robot” software, designed to interact in a human like manner. One of the more common uses of bots is in IRC and IM (Chat rooms and Instant Massage software). It’s supposed to give us some service, on a conversation-like interface.

It’s been among us for many years. We heard them reporting the weather, giving zip codes, sport scores, converting currency and unites or just “talking” to us to pass the time. No one really paid attention. We knew they’re out there and didn’t care.

But now, there are signs an invasion is imminent.

On December 3rd, a Microsoft-made Christmas-bot got out of control and started sexually harassing the young and inocent. Kids asking questions about pizza, where pulled into conversation about oral sex. This was only the beginning.

Four days later, on December 7th, another bot surfaced. This time – on the other side of the globe. again – suffering from some sexual issues, but this time, it was also harmful. Russian chat room visitors found themselves involved in romantic conversations with CyberLover, ending up trying to pick pocket their identitys. Body invasion in a cyber era?

A week and a half later, again on the other side of the world, Google announced a translation bot. Simple as it may sound – you write the bot something in your language and it replays the translation – this, as Google states, is only the beginning:

For those of you into programming, why not build your own bot? Maybe a weather service or a rock/paper/scissors game. The Google Talk service uses an open protocol called XMPP, and it’s easy to find client libraries and code samples that will give you a flying start…

Bots now have a way of breeding.

I will not be the least surprised to see companies building bot-warehouses, where users can build they’re own bots, like Widget creation platforms, for appliances like shopping assistance, fashion recommendations, vertical news updates, directions assistance and so on. Give me an API (Google maps, Google news, Twitter and a zillion others), a bot platform and I’ll give you talking companions for everything.

You’ll be able to recognize me with ease now. I’m the one wearing the tin-foil hat.

Invasion log, supplemental: January 6th. “They” now know where we are and tell us where to go.