From Grist.com come’s a sign of the times we live in: a virtual arguer.
Nigel Leck got tired of arguing with people who were skeptical about global warming science. Noticing that most of them used the same debunked arguments over and over again, he decided to make a Twitter chatbot to answer them automatically. The bot is named @AI_AGW (the photo is of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s camera-eye), and every 5 minutes it searches the twitterverse for debunked arguments. When it finds one, it sends a reply with a link to a source that explains the counter-argument.
Since the bot became active on May 26, 2010, it has sent out over 40,000 tweets, or an average of more than 240 updates per day!…Leck’s bot is an innovative, yet appalling new tactic in the ongoing campaign by global warming proponents to stifle debate and end discussion of climate science and policy. Spamming Twitter users is a tactic that is likely to backfire…There is nothing internet users find more annoying than trolls using spam to shut down online discussions…
Talk to the virtual hand.
Nullius in Verba 