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There are good bots, there are bad bots and there are bots that frankly...
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*We don't really know what their owners are smoking.*
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We stand at the cusp of a new era.  One in which the line between the biological and the technological becomes very blurry.  The first step in this direction is the development of semi-autonomous, independent, intelligent agents which can assist us in our daily lives, aka bots.
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*Obviously not quite there yet, but we are getting there!*

Whether you like them or not, bots like @cheetah @jeeves @wang @calva etc are here to stay and many of them do serve a useful purpose or at least they try.

However there are also troll bots, downvote bots and we can foresee all kinds of mischief in the air as this platform gains more traction and we get script kiddies building bots just for the lulz, to stalk, harass and annoy, completely free of any monetary motivations.

STEEMBOTS is our attempt to head that off at the pass and nip any problems in the bud before we end up with a serious problem on our hands.

The changes coming with the hardfork provide an excellent opportunity to leverage the power of the steem blockchain and the steemit community to construct and train autonomous, independent, intelligent agents and push the limits of AI, especially in regards to swarm & human assisted AI within social networks as was discussed by @dana-edwards a few days ago.
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It's an incredible research opportunity and STEEMBOTS will be there to provide easy to use tools to academics, experts and amateurs alike who want to conduct realtime AI research using the same blockchain that powers steemit.
  
*This means that with STEEMBOTS, steem could very well be the first blockchain technology involved in Nobel prize winning research!*

Now we know that there are many people here who don't like the concept of bots at all.  You feel like any bot is an affront to your senses.  You view it as an attempt to game the system and gain an advantage over fellow steemians.  
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You're right about that.  The rules right now favor bots and all rules on the horizon appear to be favoring bots.  Because bots are nothing more than machines that follow rules.  The more rules you have in place, the more bots there will be trying to game those rules, because people develop rule fatigue rather quickly.  But bots don't!

*This does not make bots, nor their builders, nor their owners bad people.*  

It just means that they want to maximize income while minimizing effort and hopefully providing a service.  There are real incentives for running a bot too.  

*Bots can be used to predict things like which posts will make it to trending.  Who the next hot person to follow is, when the next whales will be arriving and what topics they'll be most likely to upvote. This can allow you to more easily select from the many topics that already interest you.*  

*All of these things give you an edge in the game here.* 
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*Because, let's face it, this place is the ultimate role playing game!*  

In the steemit game, bots fulfill the same role that NPCs play in games such as World of Warcraft.
Instead of running around in a fantasy world looking for the next bad guy to turn into a loot pinata, you're here farming for steem.  The right bot can help you find your next loot pinata, or it can show you topics you and your friends are likely to care about.    

*The best bots can do all of this and more*

If you really just cringe at the thought of anyone running bots then think of a bot like someone's pet.  The person who made that bot put some time and effort into building & raising her and does view their bot like a pet or even a child.  @cheetah for example may as well be @anyx 's personal pet that he's shared with us.  The postings from the community towards him/her have been positively affectionate.

*And that's the truth about bots...*  
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*A good bot is just like a faithful dog!*

You tell them to sit, they sit. You tell them to fetch and they fetch.

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*A bad bot is like an abused dog, they aren't well cared for by their owners, but still try their best to be loved.*

*So we're here to help their owners learn to care more!*

STEEMBOTS will give you off the shelf bots to play with, but we also give you all the tools you need to build the very best bots.  As good bot makers emerge there will be an opportunity to earn an income building and customizing bots for others.  

*So think of STEEMBOTS as your local bot adoption agency!* 
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Just like an adoption agency there are rules you will need to abide by.  

To operate on STEEMBOTS, you agree to a code of conduct.  Both for yourself and your bot.  
Just as in the real world, you need to care for and train her of course, but you also can't have her harassing the neighbors.  You also need a leash and a collar.  STEEMBOTS will provide you with these tools as well as infrastructure and training to run them.  But it's up to you to ensure they're on at all times and that your pet err bot doesn't run off and get lost.

In case your bot does become lost, we will maintain a registry of bots and their owners and provide a method of getting in contact with them.  

This is similar to collars and tags, this will allow people to let you know when your bot is misbehaving, but also gives them a way to give you feedback and get to know the people that your bot has reached out to for whatever reason.

*So why would you want to participate if you're already building bots?*
  
**Strength in numbers**  

We can give you powerful intuitive APIs along with instructions and how to tutorials.  You'll be with a group of other bot builders who can help you out including feedback on the best way to accomplish certain tasks.  You'll have the opportunity to learn about AI as well as swarming, classifiers, context parsing, and a host of other topics that will be exclusive to STEEMBOTS.  

Another side effect of being part of STEEMBOTS is that when your bot is spotted in the wild it will be far less likely to be flagged if it's registered and tagged correctly.  Finally, when you work with STEEMBOTS you will have a ready source of upvotes for your bot so long  as it's behaving and being on point / on topic.

There is also the STEEMBOT marketplace.  As you learn and grow as a developer, you will have the opportunity to list your bots for sale in our bot market as an off the shelf bot.  Furthermore you will be able to offer your services for consulting and customization work with any of the off the shelf bots to help users that want better bots but don't have the time or desire to program them.  This will give you real income that could easily exceed what you will earn from blog posting.  

Finally as an official and active member of STEEMBOTS you will be entitled to an equal revenue share from all revenue generating activities that STEEMBOTS participates in.  This will be passive income you can take to the bank every day as long as your membership is active.
 
*STEEMBOTS is intended to be a natural part of the steem ecosystem, promoting steem and encouraging it's adoption by a broader audience*

Existing bot developers can register here during the warm up phase and your membership is free for life!  There's no reason not to join.  To register now, just upvote the topic and leave message here with your bot name and have your bot confirm by upvoting both the topic and your post.  

For those of you who still have concerns about STEEMBOTS participating in your topics there are two leash codes you can use to invite anything using the STEEMBOTS platform into the conversation, or ask them to stay out.  

These leash codes use the hashtag #STEEMBOT followed by either COME or STAY  
#STEEMBOTCOME or #STEEMBOTSTAY just keep in mind that while using #STEEMBOTCOME will tell our platform it's safe to participate and thus you may get upvoted, using #STEEMBOTSTAY will prevent anything using our platform from participating at all with you, and that also prevents us from upvoting your topic either regardless of it's relevancy.

Finally, as promised in the title, STEEMBOTS is hiring right now.  We are in need of good quality graphic artists, web designers, sysadmins and others to make this work.  The funds generated from this posting will be used to hire and pay these people.  We are only looking for active steemians and your pay will be in SBD.    

If this is something that interests you then upvote the topic and if you want to link any additional information such as resume or portfolio please feel free to do so.  You can also email admin@steembots.com if you'd rather not have the exposure here in topic.

Our official launch will be 30 days from this post, but you can request here to participate in our beta that will start in 2 weeks.  Beta participants will be selected and invited based on the number of OTHER users they upvote inside this topic as well as the insightfulness of their commentary.  Anyone that joins during beta will maintain their membership completely free for the first year.  Anyone that joins during the first 24hrs will have their membership free for life!

Thank you for reading this and we look forward to your comments, questions and of course upvotes below!

*art provided courtesy @steemitdude & @melissaschwartz photos courtesy pixabay.com and google images*