The Future of Friendship

How many of your Facebook friends are robots? Maybe more than you think. New research from the University of British Columbia suggests that users of online social networks like Facebook are surprisingly susceptible to infiltration by socialbots — computer programs designed to pass themselves off as human beings.

This week on Spark, we’ll play Nora’s interview with Tim Hwang, a socialbot researcher and the organizer of a socialbot coding competition. They’ll discuss some of the techniques socialbots use to mimic us, and how we can tell the difference between bots and humans. You can hear the full, uncut interview by Nora Young with Tim Hwang on CBC Radio’s Spark, by clicking here.

Ref: CBC Radio’s Spark, http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/11/full-interview-tim-hwang-on-socialbots/