New Feature: Scripted Agent Estate Access Discussion

[Sid Nagy]

18 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

Are you aware that some of the things that would break are things people depend on for RL income? You can say that that income has never been guaranteed, which is true, but breaking them all at once when there are ways to ease into it unnecessarily maximizes the pain, and the loss of some residents. 

No worries. Coffee's solution will not take place, even if it is likely the most logic solution for the long term.
LL is known for not breaking things or changing policies abruptly all too often.
 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Love Zhaoying]

31 minutes ago, bunboxmomo said:

But in the space of 2-3 days in this thread, I have become increasingly horrified with what I can only describe as a cult of hate towards anyone who holds any opinion other than total derision and contempt towards bot developers. I've seen that then spill out as it intensified over a series of days into developers in general. Even those who agree with you, but just not in the way you are 100% happy with.

Since you have admitted to being "new on the Forums", please be aware that a lot of the "hate toward developers in general" comes from what we lovingly may call "the usual suspects". Those who often provide similar feedback. I wish you had known or we had a way to warn you about that.

Anyway, the deny_bots discussion has been very productive and fruitful, and you contributed a lot.

[Istelathis]

I will once again say, it might be a decent work around for LL to host NPCs on the serverside complete with a new set of scripting functions to operate them with.  It would offer a level of transparency that otherwise does not exist.  For bots that are used to accumulate data, LL would have a much higher level of control over what that data is being used for.

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OSSLNPC

Provide residents the tools to be as creative as possible in SL, including using NPCs, temperament the fears of residents who fear that bots are being used with malicious intention. 

There will still be bad actors, who don't register bots, ran from their own networks, that will always be a problem, so in addition to this provide some common sense solutions to protect people from them, such as defaulting the RL section of their profile to off limits to everyone outside of friends with the option of making it viewable to the public.  

Roaming bots would need the approval of SL, before being sent off into the world.  They would be granted the seal of authenticity from LL.  Instead of simply banning all bots from parcels, or regions, give residents the option to ban bots from certain organizations if they still feel uncomfortable with some of the bot owners, further allow an opt-out for their own avatar throughout the entire grid so that the bot has no ability to gather information from them.  

[Paul Hexem]

13 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

No worries Coffee's solution will not take place, even if it is likely the most logic solution for the long term.
LL is known for not breaking things or changing policies abruptly all too often.
 

Nor are they in the habit of doing work themselves that residents can do for them.

Like I said previously, there's no way we'll see bots totally banned at this point; enforcing it and replacing all the lost functions is something they'll never do.

They also appear to want to appease even the most irrational "ban all bots" positions.

All we're going to get is more half baked solutions if we get anymore at all, is my bet.

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, M Peccable said:

Are you aware that some of the things that would break are things people depend on for RL income? You can say that that income has never been guaranteed, which is true, but breaking them all at once when there are ways to ease into it unnecessarily maximizes the pain, and the loss of some residents.

You say bots are never good. I say knee-jerk, heavy-handed reactions are never good. 

The thing is we don't know the whole story and LL may not have a choice because they know something that we don't.

As far as all content, it ultimately belongs to LL to do with as they please.  We risk having a business here.

As a builder, I lost my sculpty business to mesh.  And, now me and eithers are facing losing our mesh business to PBR.  And, while it's difficult to "embrace the suck" of how ever-changing virtual worlds work, we still took the risk.  Some do well, others break even, and some will be underwater as virtual worlds change.  I know a few who just got done with their mesh store for some of these newest bodies and the endless hours of work that went into that because they did not know about PBR.  They could end up underwater or have to redo everything.  

But, I'm really just sayin' LL may have no other choice, and those with current bots may have to to retire those.  You can protest all you want but LL may not even be listening and their decision is made.  

Edited April 2, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Love Zhaoying]

32 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I will once again say, it might be a decent work around for LL to host NPCs on the serverside complete with a new set of scripting functions to operate them with.  It would offer a level of transparency that otherwise does not exist.  For bots that are used to accumulate data, LL would have a much higher level of control over what that data is being used for.

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OSSLNPC

Provide residents the tools to be as creative as possible in SL, including using NPCs, temperament the fears of residents who fear that bots are being used with malicious intention. 

There will still be bad actors, who don't register bots, ran from their own networks, that will always be a problem, so in addition to this provide some common sense solutions to protect people from them, such as defaulting the RL section of their profile to off limits to everyone outside of friends with the option of making it viewable to the public.  

Roaming bots would need the approval of SL, before being sent off into the world.  They would be granted the seal of authenticity from LL.  Instead of simply banning all bots from parcels, or regions, give residents the option to ban bots from certain organizations if they still feel uncomfortable with some of the bot owners, further allow an opt-out for their own avatar throughout the entire grid so that the bot has no ability to gather information from them.  

Implied, these "official" NPC's would have a limited set of capabilities for data collection, etc. (Sorry if it should have been obvious from your post.)

[M Peccable]

4 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

But, I'm really just sayin' LL may have no other choice, and those with current bots have may to retire those.  You can protest all you want but LL may not even be listening and their decision is made.  

I believe if there were some compelling legal reason that all bots have to be immediately banned that it would have already happened. So I believe they are listening. Otherwise they probably wouldn't tolerate this thread, lol.

Also, I hope my posts are not coming off as protesting. I am genuinely trying to offer workable answers and find compromise. But maybe my words sometimes gets in the way of that.

[EliseAnne85]

2 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

I believe if there were some compelling legal reason that all bots have to be immediately banned that it would have already happened. So I believe they are listening. Otherwise they probably wouldn't tolerate this thread, lol.

Also, I hope my posts are not coming off as protesting. I am genuinely trying to offer workable answers and find compromise. But maybe my words sometimes gets in the way of that.

Well, you can keep trying but if content in a virtual world has to be broken, it was probably seen as best for the whole of the virtual world itself.  

Technologies come and go.  Looking towards bettering bots is a good idea, imo, because things have changed in the world of AI.  

It might end up a complete do-over due to technology advancing.  SL Business' will have to adapt.

I felt you were protesting because you are putting a lot of effort into this discussion for days; when, in truth, LL really has it's own plan we can't know of until they tell us.  

You, of course, can keep debating.  I honestly wasn't trying to silence you.  It's just that I've been there with my own business in SL and I know it's all a risk because LL ultimately owns everything.  We are sub-licensees.  

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

Otherwise they probably wouldn't tolerate this thread, lol.

I believe this thread is "mostly" tolerated in part, because there is no "naming and shaming" (as with some of the earlier bot threads), and contrary to what some may believe, this thread is relatively "drama free". 

 

[M Peccable]

4 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

It might end up a complete do-over due to technology advancing.  SL Business' will have to adapt.

Yes, you're right, and that isn't what I am debating. It's just that I believe LL's hand has not been forced on this. If it were, I think enforcing the estate bot ban on all of the mainland would have already happened. Even you used the word "might". So this leaves open the possibility of exploring various ways to fix the bad bot problem without having to use a sledgehammer to do it.

As long as I feel that way I will continue to offer my ideas, which appears to be much to the chagrin of many.

[Istelathis]

32 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Implied, these "official" NPC's would have a limited set of capabilities for data collection, etc. (Sorry if it should have been obvious from your post.)

Yes, plus if LL wanted to go the extra mile there could be a registry one could go to, and see the purpose of roaming bots so that they can make more informed decisions as to how they want to interact with them as far as their own land holdings, or avatar is concerned.  

For example, bots being used for a product to give us data on security orbs or ban lines, there would be a page showing the owner of the bot, the intent, what data is gathered, and so on.  It would provide a level of transparency that I don't think currently exists in SL.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Istelathis

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, bunboxmomo said:

That goes entirely against Open Source as a concept that SL is built on.

Someone has probably already pointed this out but just in case they didn't (and I haven't caught up yet) SL has never been Open Source. NEVER. Not even the TPVs have access to all the viewer code.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

Yes, plus if LL wanted to go the extra mile there could be a registry one could go to, and see the purpose of roaming bots so that they can make more informed decisions as to how they want to interact with them as far as their own land holdings, or avatar is concerned.  

For example, bots being used for a product to give us data on security orbs or ban lines, there would be a page showing the owner of the bot, the intent, what data is gathered, and so on.  It would provide a level of transparency that I don't think currently exists in SL.

Sounds great!

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Someone has probably already pointed this out but just in case they didn't (and I haven't caught up yet) SL has never been Open Source. NEVER. Not even the TPVs have access to all the viewer code.

Heck, I was going to take their word for it! Lol! (Sounded unlikely.)

[xDancingStarx]

Apology if that sounds arrogant but I find this whole "ban bots!" discussion impossible to lead to any accepted solution, even let's assume that all bot clients are banned (which is impossible. you will shut down only the good and honest actors.) People then would just attach a script to their original non bot Viewer and keep doing whatever they did.

Funny enough there hasn't been a real issue caused by any bots apart from profile information being published (which I also complained about) and they just showing up on the map. However, what people may be scared of is already out there. virtual******, we all know the name of the site. It exists, it's bad. People are already doing what some people are afraid bots could do.

Also, someone mentioned how it would be great to also hide any objects from a parcel with the privacy setting turned on. I find this completely out of touch with reality. It would look really not so good and IMO shows how these "anti bot ideas" reach way too far. I have the feeling some people would rather see SL burn to the ground than have one single bot roaming out there.

Edited April 2, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, M Peccable said:

Wow. How sensitive you are to denying others of their "useful services". Some of those services are being depended upon a great deal more than you seem to be aware of.

And you seem to carry around with you quite a large sledgehammer.

Sounds to me like they're addicted to be so dependent on a script in a virtual world. Imagine if they had to do without their smartphones. Personally, I refuse to live my life so dependent on gadgets and I am happier for it.

[M Peccable]

4 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Sounds to me like they're addicted to be so dependent on a script in a virtual world. Imagine if they had to do without their smartphones. Personally, I refuse to live my life so dependent on gadgets and I am happier for it.

Some people derive their RL income from the gadget called SL (or at least a portion of it). Fortunately, I believe LL is very aware of that, and takes it into consideration when selecting the appropriate sledgehammer size.

[Qie Niangao]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I like how you attribute the origin of griffer bot activity to envy of a failick nature. But, in the current context of deny_bots, I am curious (to the thread topic) whether you believe the removal of the griffers' substitute for their lacks, will lead to a cooling period - a leveling out (like a reset of the Matrix), or whether this deny_bots change may lead to at least a temporary increase of griffer overcompensation such as a proliferation of dark RP towers on mainland, a crop of spite billboards to block (deny) views, or some other knock-on (knock-out? Knock-knock? Narcan?) effect?

There's a risk that the OG griefers, incels who must now be pushing 40, if denied their recent creepy bot outlet, would find more destructive misbehaviors. So yeah: to enforce, or not to enforce? Like, if you don't indict a former pol, you're spared the bother of armed insurrection, but then all future pols will be immune from prosecution, and that's a big slice of moral hazard.

Of course I'm only assuming it's griefers, botting for the lulz. Otherwise, if these new bot swarms are intended for something innocent, needing so very many of them suggests their bot runners are abysmally inept. I guess that would be the conclusion dictated by Hanlon's Razer.

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I would rather we toss those services and then have a decent discussion about what would be needed to replace them.

SL groups are not fit for purpose. They have never been for for purpose.

Rip the bandaid off, starting with all the 3rd party bots.

[EliseAnne85]

20 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

Some people derive their RL income from the gadget called SL (or at least a portion of it). Fortunately, I believe LL is very aware of that, and takes it into consideration when selecting the appropriate sledgehammer size.

People do care about that.  The question I have though is how does SL get rid of the bad ones (bots) while keeping the good ones (bots) other than deny_bots and start over with new, let's say, registered bots. 

[Qie Niangao]

I suspect it's only a matter of time before bots undeclared as scripted agents will be impossible to keep logged in for more than a few seconds. There will be attempts to "correct" the bot software to extend the sessions, but watch WireShark all they like, they won't be able to evade detection forever. Now too many signatures, then too many secrets.

So what to do about these services that scripted agents provide? Let's posit that some of them are genuinely essential. Suppose the Lab gave a special dispensation for those bots that provide only those services. As I mentioned before, that's an expensive proposition, with the Lab needing to play App Store and review the scripts and the bot software (see first paragraph) to determine which bots to allow.

Thing is, it's a good thing that it would be expensive for the Lab to do this. It will finally motivate them to create script APIs for a host of functions they've always left to bots. They left them to bots because the viewer interface is slow and tied to a login session, so they didn't need to make credentialed, secure, rate-limited script APIs. This is why we still rely on bots to do anything useful with groups, parcel settings, etc. If keeping the bots on the job costs the Lab enough, they'll be motivated to finally grow proper APIs.

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

registered bots. 

Yes please.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

/me peeks in tentatively

A thought about the tendency towards absolutist or code-driven responses to what I hope in future we will all be calling The Winter of the Bot . . .

The "malefactors" in this drama, those using bots in ways that potentially or really endanger privacy and that results in them popping up like mushrooms everywhere, are pretty much all driven by a "Code Is Law" and "Solutionist" approach to platforms built from code: if it can be done, then it's ok to do it, and we probably should be doing it, precisely because we can.

Responses to this that are built solely around changing code -- removing affordances (such as scripted agents) or adding new code to restrict them -- are built upon the same premise, viz., that the solution to everything, and specifically to problems that derive from code, is to create more code.

I want to argue that about 80% of the damage that has been inflicted upon our modern political and social culture over the past two decades, on social media and elsewhere, is the result of this way of thinking. And the answers are only going to be partially found by deploying more code. Food shortages? Let's tweak this code! Climate change? Well, there's an app for that!

You will never fix largely human problems -- the exploitation of code by bad actors -- purely through code.

LL's response to this has been a mixed one: they've made changes to the code, restricting the access of scripted agents to some places, and providing new affordances to landowners, but they have also made policy changes.

Those changes, in the policy on scripted agents, and the remarks on "global" guidelines on the usage of personal data, are pretty fuzzy. And that's very deliberate and good -- because human problems are much too complex to solve with overly-rigid "laws" and code switches.

LL has empowered itself to make discretionary and selective judgment calls on particularly toxic employments of the tools they have given us. That means that we need to have some faith that LL will actually bestir itself to do so when the situation requires, but I think they've demonstrated now that they can and will do that. Similarly, their response to RedZone wasn't primarily articulated through "code," but rather through discretionary action taken against one particular misuse of an affordance available on this platform that is, in fact, still a part of this platform. Similarly, we / they can find a reasonable response to The Bot Problem without eliminating all bots.

There are some coding-level changes I'd like to see made still: parcel-level controls, and protecting or shielding data in parcels at the discretion of parcel or estate owners.

But those aren't going to fix the problems by themselves. Nor will a purge of all bots.

We need, and have been partially supplied with, a human solution to this very human problem.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra
Spelling

[xDancingStarx]

22 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I suspect it's only a matter of time before bots undeclared as scripted agents will be impossible to keep logged in for more than a few seconds. There will be attempts to "correct" the bot software to extend the sessions, but watch WireShark all they like, they won't be able to evade detection forever.

Can you back that up somehow please? Why do bots still exist in WoW, a game that has been existing for so many years? It's completely unreasonable to assume that bots can be kept out. It's impossible. That's why the only thing the new deny bots setting will achieve is that legit users are kept out of their sims and the others will still go there.

 

"will be impossible to keep logged in for more than a few seconds"

Also sorry but this is not how it works. Bots are not banned immediately since it would give away too much information about the detection mechanism.

Edited April 2, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Silent Mistwalker]

53 minutes ago, M Peccable said:

Some people derive their RL income from the gadget called SL (or at least a portion of it). Fortunately, I believe LL is very aware of that, and takes it into consideration when selecting the appropriate sledgehammer size.

Tell me something I haven't known for more than 5 decades.