My Spam Readers

Yesterday I participated in a panel on the life and work of Alan Turing, for whom 2012 marks a centennial. As you’d probably expect, the discussion included conversation about artificial intelligence, what counts as “intelligence,” and when AI is “good enough.” The Turing Test, of course, is famous for reframing “thinking machines” as imitating machines.

The machines must have been listening, because this morning I found a new salvo of incredibly persuasive imitations in my blog comments. There’s no doubt that they are spam, but its now clear that the spambots are carefully reading my blog (and other, related blogs)—perhaps more carefully than many human readers.

I’ve removed the URLs from these comments for obvious reasons, but left the locations of the links for reference. I’ll be curious to see what the spambots have to say about all this. Oh, and you human readers too, I guess.

The racism against ‘Continental’ philosophy aside, especially in the comment to Bogost’s post above, Louis Vuitton Handbags I am slightly overwhelmed at the incredible lack of argument and self assured dismissal of Derrida on politics.

Why do I hold on to digital humanities as a descriptor for what I do? For one thing, it’s convenient. Louis Vuitton Women at my institution get it, and if I were to argue that we need another hire in that area, well, I might or might not get my way.

This runs against what we might call the “middlebrow” or positive requirement that Louis Vuitton leather outlet style do little more than leave us with an impression of authority and perfect understanding.