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Adding local short description: "Computer program that is supposedly clairvoyant", overriding Wikidata description "Internet Bot computer program supposedly able to predict future events" |
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{{about|the prediction software|internet-based programs|Internet bot}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}
'''Web Bot''' is an [[internet bot]] computer program whose developers claim is able to predict future events by tracking keywords entered on the internet. It was developed in 1997, originally to
==Methodology==
[[Internet bots]] monitor news articles, blogs, forums, and other forms of Internet chatter. Words in the lexicon are assigned numeric values for emotional quantifiers such as duration, impact, immediacy, intensity, and others. The lexicon is dynamic, and changes according to shifts in emotional tension, and how humans communicate those changes using the Internet. As of 2008, there were about 300,000 keywords in the lexicon, along with emotional context,<ref>{{cite news|url=
The operators of Web Bot interpret the bot's results and make a report called the "ALTA report" available on their website to paying subscribers. ALTA stands for "asymmetric language trend analysis".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.halfpasthuman.com/altaprocess.html |title=ALTA Process |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=8 May 2011 |website=Half Past Human: Adventures in Future Viewing |access-date=10 April 2016 }}</ref> Many believe the predictions are [[pseudoscientific]] and too vague to be meaningful.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailycommonsense.com/web-bot-what-is-it-can-it-predict-stuff/ |title=Web Bot, What is it? Can it Predict Stuff? |publisher=Daily Common Sense |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012193312/http://www.dailycommonsense.com/web-bot-what-is-it-can-it-predict-stuff/ |archive-date=12 October 2009 }}</ref> Despite this, the creators have made many claims [[Postdiction|after the fact]] that their reports have predicted important events.
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==Reception==
The [[History (U.S. TV channel)|History Channel]] has discussed Web Bot in its special "Doomsday 2012: The End of Days" on [[Decoding the Past#Season 3|season 3 of Decoding The Past]] and on other shows that feature predictions about the end of the world, such as the ''[[Nostradamus Effect]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=396904 |title=History TV Shows |publisher=History.com |access-date=4 January 2012}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=August 2015|reason=Doomsday 2012 isn't listed anymore. Probably not on the network anymore.}} A ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'' journalist noted that:
{{blockquote|What interests me more than the bot's accuracy (of which I'm skeptical), is the relentless negativity of its projections. According to the bot, the future is always bleak and steadily worsening.<ref name=taylor/>}}
Tom Chivers in the ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'' notes three criticisms of the project:
{{blockquote|...the internet might plausibly reveal group knowledge about the stock market or, conceivably, terror attacks [but] it would be no more capable of predicting a natural disaster than would a Google search,{{nbsp}}... the predictions are so vague as to be meaningless, [and] the prophecies become self-distorting.<ref name=telegraph/>}}
==See also==
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==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
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