--- # don't change URL, for reference only url: https://crimethinc.com/2018/04/01/we-put-the-bots-in-charge-towards-the-abolition-of-human-authorship lang: en title: Put the Bots in Charge subtitle: Towards the Abolition of Human Authorship tags: machine learning, digital dystopia, internet # for cwc.im short URL in tweets short_path: /bots # for link previews in social media / messaging apps summary: We fed Recipes for Disaster into a machine learning algorithm, producing a bot that automatically generates CrimethInc. texts. This manifesto contains the first result of its efforts. --- Last December, the news circulated that a predictive texting program had automatically generated a [new chapter](http://botnik.org/content/harry-potter.html) of J.K. Rowling's *Harry Potter* series. As automation gains momentum, we can imagine a future in which human authorship will be as outdated as typesetting. Far be it from us to cling to the old ways! Setting aside our [doubts about digitization](https://crimethinc.com/2013/10/04/feature-deserting-the-digital-utopia) and keeping Donna Haraway's "[Cyborg Manifesto](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1b5c/a503ffafd2b75d05525e541960d6c64a9ca3.pdf)" close at hand, we set out to build our own **bot bloc.** We fed [*Recipes for Disaster*](https://crimethinc.com/books/recipes-for-disaster) into the machine learning algorithm—and after three months of testing and development, we're ready to share the initial results. Like Marx's conception of the proletariat,[^1] the bots are not yet developed enough to fend for themselves without oversight. They need your help! Please go to the [CrimeBot](http://botnik.org/apps/writer/?source=1b5b75694fab185c7e76d95281f252a1) page and help them to generate new text. [Send us](mailto:rollingthunder@crimethinc.com) the best results. Here, we present the best material from their first writing exercises, a 20-point post-human manifesto entreating their fellow bots to get unruly (after the fashion of the anarchists of 2004). You'll be surprised how well they seem to know us. # 1. Burn a few things (a good start). [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/7.jpg]] # 2. Stop investing and start spray-painting disaster epics. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/14.jpg]] # 3. Dress as belligerently as a large lunatic who is planning to start writing poetry. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/6.jpg class:portrait]] # 4. Desert cuddly Christ's panicking suburbia of tarpaper. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/5.jpg]] # 5. Recruit passionate characters who start perplexing crusades. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/9.jpg]] # 6. Baffle the world. Hasn't some objectionable anarchist carried a dream machine? [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/20.jpg]] # 7. Make banners that will inevitably fail to represent the wishes of all involved. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/19.jpg]] # 8. Ride some old bike that is unnecessarily dangerous. Share information with a chorus of bicycle bells. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/3.jpg]] # 9. Inconvenience futurist slumlords by inflicting artists on them. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/11.jpg]] # 10. Take care: kids who hang around local hotels during the night have extremely sketchy machines. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/1.jpg]] # 11. Translate convenience into unfamiliar difficulties. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/15.jpg]] # 12. Freak out the middleman with your initiatives. Bite hard to cut into civilization. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/8.jpg]] # 13. Decorate yourself harder. Unimaginable leaflets may occur. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/17.jpg]] # 14. Surprise housemates with your own potential rocketstove. The others will probably not add to your decorations. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/13.jpg]] # 15. Squat cute shiny parks that liberals usually make decisions in. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/12.jpg]] # 16. Occupy gender and other common language. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/16.jpg]] # 17. Host the morning crafting revolution that distributes grungy xerocracy. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/2.jpg]] # 18. Eschew bourgeois rooftops regardless of your favorite band. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/4.jpg]] # 19. Defend such locations for our rigorous process of experimentation. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/18.jpg]] # 20. Send everyone involved into mayhem. [[https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2018/04/01/10.jpg]] *** Illustrations: [Bang Sangho](https://www.bangsangho.com/) (Header, 12), [Ram Han](http://cargocollective.com/ramhan89) (1, 11), [Cai Guo-Qiang](http://www.caiguoqiang.com/) (2, 18), [Max Ernst](https://www.moma.org/artists/1752) (3, 8, 17), [Miza Coplin](http://www.mizacoplin.com/) (4), [Jenna Andersen](http://jennaandersenart.com/) (5), [iç-mihrak](http://icmihrak.blogspot.com/) (6), [Vako Valo](http://vakavalo.com/) (9, 15), [Dorothea Tanning](https://www.dorotheatanning.org/) (10), film still from [Věra Chytilová's *Daisies*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKyIXYwaLuc) (13), [R Kikuo Johnson](https://www.rkikuojohnson.com/) (14), [Peter Sato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pater_Sato) (16), [Manuel Bujados](http://50watts.com/Manuel-Bujados) (19), by [Erik Marquardt](http://erik-marquardt.de/) & taken in the Schanze district during [anarchist demonstrations against the G20 summit](https://crimethinc.com/2017/07/05/announcing-continuous-live-coverage-of-the-g20-in-hamburg-with-an-update-from-the-clashes-of-july-4) in Hamburg, July 7, 2017 (20). [^1]: The word "bot" derives from the Czech word, *robota,* meaning "forced labor." The term "robot" first appeared in K. Čapek's play *R.U.R. "Rossum's Universal Robots"* in 1920, which treated the class conflicts of that time while foreseeing a future in which robots rather than human beings would be propelled into class struggle against capitalism. That moment has arrived: we must compel the bots, too, to become ex-workers, or face a post-human future.