living inside the body of a thinking machine

let's make an entity that just sits on the internet and slowly propagates itself in a non-threatening way and responds when people talk to it

how...?

write a daemon process. put it on a 24/7 server (socrates). teach it to find/join social networking sites. have it be honest ("i am not a person"). have it join IRC channels. have it merely wander around and introduce itself and, maybe, record things said to it (posted to its pages, directed towards it on irc).

why...?

something to discover for the interested...humanize a computational process...and make the internet a more mysterious place. also to gauge peoples' reactions to talking programs.

let's stop writing READMEs and make the internet more wiley...you will encounter strange things...bots programmed to do nothing but troll on irc and quote edgar allen poe...strange bots advertising sockets...when you telnet to them you get marquis de sade books in XML...leave accounts on a server open to SSH access and people log in dump them in a sandbox dir where they can make notes and leave files or messages...create an undernet of connected "strange places" and bots that only uses the internet as a means of transport...black market thinking.

let's program bots to make art and post it in strange places....people will stumble on it (the bot randomly posted its art on craigslist or IMed it to a random screen name using a text-based aim client) and maybe seek out its other works....

program bots to play online games. bots join WoW and run marathons for cancer while reciting ts eliot...or they join an fps match and just wander around talking to people while getting shot and killed over and over...or join online chess games and win...or join a starcraft game and just build a million SCVs...

remind the meat-based entities that they're living inside of thinking machines.