A second hodgepodge of things I’ve found on the Internet.
How to Build a Twitter Bot
http://www.zachwhalen.net/posts/how-to-make-a-twitter-bot-with-google-spreadsheets-version-04/
https://www.labnol.org/internet/write-twitter-bot/27902/
https://www.fastcompany.com/3031500/how-twitter-bots-fool-you-into-thinking-they-are-real-people
The third article is the most interesting because it’s from 2014 (remember Klout scores?) and really shows how little (and how much) has changed in the Twitter bot universe. Essentially the heart of the strategy is the same, but mixed with a way to learn (through AI, or natural language processing which is clearly being done at some more sophisticated campaigns) and adapt depending on where we are, I suspect that we are on the cusp of what the future looks like when everyone you meet online could not actually be a person. My Philip K. Dick collection became a lot less sci-fi and more prescient.
More Bots (Cisco Spark/Microsoft Teams):
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/botsconversation
https://developer.ciscospark.com/bots.html
Both Cisco Spark and Microsoft Teams are available where I work. Both have vague collaboration mandates, both can be used for communication. At this point, Spark might be more advanced with third party enhancements and bots. Teams might end up being the platform of choice if students are involved. I’m hoping to build a chatbot to handle common sorts of requests that our LMS support team get (ie. the stuff we have a predefined reply in our ticketing system, which isn’t attended to after 4:30 PM).
Natural Language Processing:
https://research.google.com/pubs/NaturalLanguageProcessing.html
https://chatbotsmagazine.com/the-problem-with-chatbots-how-to-make-them-more-human-d7a24c22f51e
Natural language is key for the chatbot above, and of course the first attempt will be ruthlessly primitive I’m sure.
Chatbots in General:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/18/chatbots-talk-town-interact-humans-technology-silicon-valley