Rise of the bots: Team completes first census of Wikipedia bots

5 years ago
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191121121747.htm

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, N.J., have now completed the first analysis of all 1,601 of Wikipedia's bots, using computer algorithms to classify them by function and shed light on the ways that machine intelligences and human users work together to improve and expand the world's largest digital encyclopedia. The work, published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, could inform the development and use of bots in commercial applications ranging from online customer service to automated microchip design.

"AI is changing the way that we produce knowledge, and Wikipedia is the perfect place to study that," said Jeffrey Nickerson, a professor in the School of Business at Stevens and one of the study's authors. "In the future, we'll all be working alongside AI technologies, and this kind of research will help us shape and mold bots into more effective tools."