Store Owner Eject Bans customer over AI Character actions.

I mentioned in passing in my last post that a friend of mine had been ejected and banned from a store group (and from store region) because of a misbehaving bot. This post isn’t about any flaws in the AI Characters that Linden Lab are trialling, it’s in Alpha testing. You’d expect glitches, but perhaps not such consequences. This is about the reaction of the merchant in question.

I thought I would try to contact the store owner on my friends behalf (with her consent) and try to find out what happened from the store owners perspective. So I sent a notecard:

Hello (Store Owner)

I'm a member of the Second Life Blogger Network and I'm researching into the recent AI Characters currently on test, and believe you recently had an incident where you had to eject+ban a bot from your store group. The bot avatar was named (redacted from post for account holder privacy). I'm wondering if you can tell me what happened from your perspective? Do you have any conversation logs? I don't know if you are aware, but the bots were logging themselves in and out without their owners interaction or knowledge. The account owners have had to change the accounts passwords to stop it it doing so. I'd be grateful for any insight you have, because bot owners currently have no way of knowing what their bots have said to anyone, there's no available logs.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Ava

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it  certainly wasn’t what I got:


[12:54:47] Store Owner: Ava hello, where how do you know may I ask please, since you are not in my group but telling me : and believe you recently had an incident where you had to eject+ban a bot from your store group. The bot avatar was named (redacted from post for account holder privacy). I'm wondering if you can tell me what happened from your perspective?
[12:55:27] Store Owner: and even if I had, for what should I share any interaction info with someone I do not know?
[12:58:16] Ava Bloodrose: I'm aware because I know the account holder, who was surprised to find themselves ejected being unaware of the bots actions. Why is to share the circumstances with my contact at the Lab to try and work out how incidents like this have happened.
[12:58:51] Ava Bloodrose: and probably blog about it
[12:59:36] Store Owner: why do this people need bots and then say they unaware?
[13:00:25] Store Owner: anyway the bot was typing me stupid things and I muted and ejected both owner and bot
[13:05:05] Ava Bloodrose: People have been trying them out just out of curiosity. The bots are controlled by a web interface, which basically has an on/off button and that's it, you interact with the bot by IM msg. The problem is the AI behind it can't tell the difference between an IM and group chat. So the bot receives a message from the group, and replies with it's nonesnse to everyone. Banning and ejecting the bot was obviously the sensible thing to do. But why the owner as well, I believe she has tried to contact you to talk about it.
[13:11:00] Store Owner: Ava listen please, I am obliged to protect everyone in my group and myself. Since the owner was that girl and I didn't know her intentions, what I did was the right thing. I'm sorry, I don't trust anyone in this regard and unfortunately I'm prejudiced against people who buy boots. Why would an ordinary SL citizen need a boat? but I do not wan't to argue about my thoughts ofc
[13:11:25] Store Owner: If you allow me please I have to be in RL for a while
[13:34:31] Ava Bloodrose: Yes, I understand you had to protect your group from the misbehaving bot. Thankyou for your time.

Hostile is the politest description I can come up with for this person, although it certainly wasn’t the first word that came to mind.

As is clear the store owner has no concept or awareness of what’s currently going on at the Lab and is highly suspicious, bordering on paranoid. It would have been a waste of time to try and explain. Obviously, as I said to them, banning the bot was the thing to do. Although perhaps contacting the declared owner (on the bots profile) might have been the more rational response than banning them as well.

As for “knowing her intentions” a glance at their profile would clearly show they weren’t a troublemaker, being a DJ (therefore a reputation to protect) and is a member of several long-established communities such as CDS (Confederation of Democratic Simulators) and Non-profit Commons in their Groups list, as well as a number of educational ones.

What stood out most for me though was this section of the conversation:

I don’t trust anyone in this regard and unfortunately I’m prejudiced against people who buy boots. Why would an ordinary SL citizen need a boat”

(I wasn’t inclined to correct their obvious typos for this post.)

My intent had been as I stated to them; try and get some information about what had happened and maybe some logs to share with the AI Character Alpha development team, to diagnose and prevent such incidents in the future. Getting my friend un-bannned from their favourite store would have been a bonus too.

This sadly demonstrates the lack of knowledge amongst certain sections of the community, believing that bots only have negative uses (thank you Bonnie Bots for that,readers may want to read the article by SLHamlet on this) and that all bots had to be paid for (SmartBots).

I am so very tempted to name the store and owner, but that would just cause needless drama. What I will say however is that it’s not a store I’ve ever mentioned or credited on this blog. Of course if the Lab would like names, I’d be happy to provide them, the owner of the bot has already submitted a support ticket.

As icing on the metaphorical cake..it seems I’m now banned from joining the store group too.

3 thoughts on “Store Owner Eject Bans customer over AI Character actions.”

  1. Huh. I find it amusing that you seem to have the same attitude toward BonnieBots as the store owner does towards bots in general, but don’t recognize it. I’d love to hear why you think BonnieBots only has negative uses?

    1. I was perhaps too flippant on my reference to BonnieBots, they do have positive uses for helping people find new places. I was referring to the controversy that was stirred up when they first came about that made everyone panic.

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