Just got back from a weekend in isolation. I’m knee deep in finals. So starting tomorrow there will be new content in the form of pictures! I’ve gotten a lot of pics I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Hope you enjoy.

BTW for new MAPSS students who come across my blog on web searches, I’m happy to answer questions. Please e-mail my school account though: mattb (at) uchicago.edu

ok one class is now officially over. The giant paper is going well. I’ve submitted my thesis topic to a conference. I’m strung out and tired but makin’ progress.

2 Classes to wrap.

24×7 Chat Walkers : How artificial intelligence prostitutes commodify fantasy in online chat rooms

In this paper I examine how bots, computer programs written to mimic human behavior, are used by the adult industry to persuade individuals in online chat rooms to join pornographic websites. These bots are optimized to take advantage of the structure of cybersex interaction genres in order to fool chatters into thinking that they are talking with another human. Via a semiotic analysis of recorded interactions between humans and these machines as humans I demonstrate how bots rely on a chatter’s desire to be recruited into a voicing role (Bakhtin), based on cultural notions of sexuality, that gives them permission to transform their fantasies into a performative textual experience. In doing so I analyze how a bot’s user profile (identity) and response script (voice) are constructed to take advantage of preexisting stereotyped sexual fantasies and instantiate and propagate gender stereotypes. I explore how bots allow the adult industry to control both the production of fantasies and the living out of them as well. Finally, I consider the socioethical implications of these machines that “pretend” to be human. Through ethnographic interviews conducted with bot creators and chatters who interact with bots the paper explores how individuals in chat rooms react to bots and to chatters who mistake them for humans. I demonstrate how these dialogs can be viewed as part of a larger discourse on the ever expanding role of technology in our public and private lives.

This is my first shot at the abstract for my paper. I may be submitting to a upcomming school conference and I needed to get this together.

24×7 Chat Walkers : How artificial intelligence prostitutes are commoditizing fantasy in online chat rooms
In this paper I examine how bots, programs that are written to function as humans, are being used by the adult industry to persuade chat room participants to join pornographic websites. I demonstrate how a semiotic analysis of these interactions between humans and machines as humans reveals how identity and performative gender stereotypes influence and evolve online interactions. In particular I will explore how these bot’s user profiles and response scripts are optimized to take advantage of naïve chatters preexisting sexual fantasies, in order to fool the chatter into thinking that they are talking with another human. In order to do this I will demonstrate how the adult industry both monetizes the creation these fantasies and these human/bot online interactions. Finally, I will consider the socioethical implications of machines that “pretend” to be human. Though ethnographic interviews conducted with bot creators and chatters who interact with bots I will explore how individuals treat bots and chatters who mistake them for humans.

IRB = Institutional Review Board

Here’s the short summary: The IRB is an extension of the Government’s Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). It’s job is to ensure that scientists don’t abuse folks. The impetus for it came initially from Nazi Death Camp experiments. However, the direct cause were a number of reprehensible experiments carried out here in the US by a number of bad eggs in the Medical and Psychological fields. The end result is that we (Social Researchers) who get any form of government funding (or are carrying out research at federally funded Universities) need to go through a lot of red tape in order to show that we will in no way harm our subjects.

Is it important? Yes. Is it out of control? Yes, at least for anthro work.

The problem for me is that online research is a very open subject area. The rules are still being laid down and that is problematic for research like mine. If all my i’s are not dotted just right I could find out that I have to scrap all my research. Conversely, if every time I enter a chat room I need to get everyone to “sign” consent forms I can’t conduct my research. Avoiding this double-bind is critical to successful completion of the project.

Yesterday, the U of Chicago IRB ruled on a number of Internet related research issues. While these don’t necessarily apply to other academic institutions, the can be used to help argue cases:

1. Any content viewable without a password is considered public
   If you can access it without signing in, it’s considered public. The general rule: if a website is listed on Google it is considered to be publicly published content. As such you do not need permission to reproduce it in studies. This includes unrestricted Blog and LiveJournal content.
2. If there are no membership restrictions for protected content it can be considered public
   As long as anyone who applies can get access to the information it will be considered public. This covers cases where a valid e-mail address is required provided that you can use a free e-mail account like Hotmail, YahooMail, or Google. As such most discussion board conversation can be considered public and you do not have to secure releases for publishing and collecting it.

   There are two possible exceptions to the above two rules:

   1. If the publisher of the content is under the of 18 there is still a need to either get parental consent or justify the waiving of it.
   2. Should the specific rules of the site/board mark content as unable to be reproduced without specific consent of the authors. The jury is currently out on this one.
3. Publicly available chatrooms are most likely public
   Sites like YahooChat, which require a free membership, most likely are public. However the U of Chicago IRB board will review these on a case by case basis. Researchers will have to address the possibility of recording information on subjects who are under 18 and will be expected to address how they will work to prevent this from happening.
4. Usernames must be changed
   Because a username can be connected back to an e-mail address, they are considered a personal identifier. Unless the individual gives specific permission to use their username it must be coded and protected as if it was a real name.

   side note: I had been concerned about how to code, considering that any pseudonym chosen could be another individual’s existing username. However the board ruled that this is not an issue providing that your notes/publications are very clear that you are using pseudonyms and that any relation to those living or dead is purely coincidental (to borrow movie jargon).

5. IRB rules do not apply to Bots
   As Bots are not human, they don’t need to be treated as human subjects. This means that no permission is required to reproduce conversations or to publish exact usernames.

   side not: Because some bots deny that they are bots, the researched needs to provide the IRB with a repeatable method for proving that they subject is an artificial intelligence (i.e. a reverse Turing test).