Bots: The Origin of a New Species

Cyberspace is now heavily populated with non-human residents known as bots. Bots are software robots that facilitate e-mail, entertain visitors, fight for control of IRC chat rooms or flood your e- mail box with spam. Andrew Leonard is the Charles Darwin of bots, chronicling their rise from the primordial cyber-ooze to their becoming major players as both drudge workers and nuisances of the computerized world.

The world of bots and their creators is filled with serious issues pertaining to online freedom, and is sometimes downright disturbing, but it is also often hilariously funny. The author takes us from the problems of recognizing artificial intelligence to the almost slapstick comedy of programming bungles. Leonard deftly reveals it all in a book that's extremely hard to put down.