Hi there!

Welcome to the CURSOR Build-a-bot library.

Here you can find the resources we have gathered for bot creation. We’ll be using these tools for our build-a-bot workshop.

https://widgetbox.app/embed/button/simple/HmsNjx9UCrcbgLQQeJSvyx?flag=true

Introduction to bots

Bots are programs that do something automated, something a human might otherwise do. A bot can help you create things, and it can help you share it with the world.

You can use bots for almost anything you can image. They can be funny, poetic, activist, informational and more.

This library is dedicated to bots that help build our digital utopias. Bots that fill our digital world with joy, subvert norms, challenge systems of power, and much more.

Inspiration

👉 Take a look at these bots for some inspiration

Getting a bot idea

Navigation

Join the Discord

On our Discord, we have a channel dedicated to bot making. This is a great place to share ideas and find inspiration.

https://discord.com/widget?id=1014642737439580240&theme=dark

About

This library is built by the CURSOR community, with input from Charlene Putney and Martin Pichlmair from LAIKA and with inspiration from Feminist Internet and many other sources.

The library is moderated by me, Mia (she/her). I’m always happy to answer any questions or take suggestions, and encourage all kinds of community feedback. You can reach me at [email protected]

How to use the library:

A word of encouragement: This library was made by a social science major who is a baby-coder. This means that if I can make a bot, you can make a bot.

Toolbox

1: Considerations on bot-making

👉 Some cyberfeminist perspectives on making bots:

🌱 “There is no feminism, only possible feminisms. There is no internet, only possible internets” (Feminist Internet)

2: Making a bot with in Tracery with Ephemeral

👉Ready-made tools to make a bot for SoMe

👉Procedural text generation bot

👉This is a great place to start for coder-newbies

Tip: Both CBDQ and CDTS will save your code. But remember to backup what you write in Ephemeral as a text file.

🔧 Use a text-based AI like ChatGPT to create word-lists for your bot (you can even ask to get it in a .JSON format to copy paste into your grammar).

Tip: Getting confused by the grammar of your bot? Try making your grammar on post it notes first.

3: Designing a feminist chatbot

👉 Make a scripted chatbot in glitch

Making a scripted chatbot is the easiest way to make a chatbot. “Scripted” means that the human interacting with the bot chooses from already scripted text when asking and answering the bot.

4: Other resources

👉 Here are some more general resources for bot-making

Showcase

Here we will showcase the amazing bots that were born out of this lab!

Readings + resources

In the future, we aim to share other readings and resources (and encourage you to do the same) – this space will be updated to save these.

Readings: